


we are weapons of choice

by dustywords



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, sameen shaw centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 56,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustywords/pseuds/dustywords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's better than being held captive by Samaritan and listen to Greer's stupid questions? In Sameen Shaw's case it's becoming the Machine's secondary analog interface and travel around the globe, searching for a way to destroy an evil AI. </p><p>It's time to kill a god and stop it from taking over the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. waking up in a world surrounded by flames

**Author's Note:**

> hi. before you get all excited that i am working on a multi-chapter fic with root x shaw as the pairing, here a few words about the story: its main focus is to deal with samaritan's power, what its' weakness is and how you could take it down. 
> 
> so: this is a complex fic that WILL HAVE root x shaw romance (seriously i am trash for these two, there is no universe i could write where these two wouldn't become a thing sooner or later), but the main plot line is actually sameen shaw being a badass while working with the machine.
> 
> i hope you'll give it a try anyway!

It takes Shaw a while to realize that she is truly awake and not just stuck in some lame dream again.

She’s slipped in and out of unconsciousness ever since she’s arrived here (wherever the hell here is), the drugs she’s getting keep her at bay. She takes her time to get her eyes adjusted to the small lamp above the doorframe and wonders why she is awake in the first place.

Her stomach churns.

Not another game master round with that wrinkle face.

She turns her head to the right and is pleasantly surprised.

Usually Greer is sitting on the now empty plastic chair to greet her with a yellow smile and stupid niceties no one needs. And then he asks the same pointless things. _Where is Miss Groves hiding? Where are your friends? Where is Harold’s machine located?_ She kills the time by imagining how she’s going to choke the dear life out of him once she finds a way out of here.

But he isn’t there.              

So why the hell is she awake?

She looks around, curious now about what has happened. Did someone forget to adjust her medication? Her eyes find the cannula in her right hand and follow the tube to the drip with the bag that is filled with some clear liquid. She can’t read the print on the bag, but she assumes it’s something for the pain, to keep her calm and sleeping when she’s not needed for some stupid jeopardy quiz.

(She’s always kept at bay and she has no idea when she had her last meal. She wonders how long they will bother.)

She takes a deep breath. The drip is clearly not working, the machine that regulates how much she gets of that stuff per hour is off.

That’s odd.

With a frown she averts her gaze. She can feel a headache lingering in the back of her head and she relaxes a little, because the upcoming pain in her skull will distract her brain from focusing too much on the burning stitch in her right side. Her bullet wounds are still in a very raw state, so she can’t be lying here longer than a few weeks. One month tops.

She swallows. Water. She needs water.

(Food would be good as well.)

Her hands are handcuffed to the bedframe on both sides and if the pristine white, window free room didn’t scream hospital, this bed sure as hell does. There is no bottle in sight. There is actually nothing in this room, except an ECG that monitors her heart rate and that stupid chair Greer sits on.

She clenches her hands into fists and groans. She is also hungry, which makes her dizzy. She could doze off again, but she wants to bask in the feeling of not being drugged anymore. With every breath her thoughts feel more solid in her mind and she remembers all the times she thought about punching Greer in his stupid wrinkled face and bail out of this room.

Maybe she’d tried to do this at some point. It would explain the handcuffs.

She stares at the metal restraints around her wrists and grits her teeth. Her hands are too wide apart, she can’t even touch them. There is no way in hell she can open the lock of each handcuff in that case. Which is dumb, because the anger is burning in her empty stomach like acid and she’d really like to get the fuck out of here.

The beeping of the ECG speeds up a little and she knows, she should try to remain calm to not alert any guards that probably linger outside her prison. There is no camera inside her room, at not least no visible one. She tries to come up with something, but her mind is still climbing out of the drug induced fog it was kept in.

With no warning, a siren suddenly goes off in the hallway behind the closed door. It’s a loud, sharp noise and she grimaces. Perfect for her headache.

She hisses in annoyance and clatters with the handcuffs, a tired attempt to get rid of them. She just wants to get out of here. Like, yesterday.

(She has no idea what day it is.)

The siren is still on and she wonders how long the agents of Samaritan will need to get this siren to shut up. It’s so distracting she almost misses another change in her heart rate.

She looks at the monitor of the ECG. Whatever this is, it’s not her heart rate. It takes her a moment to get it.

Morse code.

The goddamn ECG is spilling Morse codes out. She closes her eyes and focuses solely on the beeping.

R-E-M-O-V-E-C-H-I-P.

She blinks.

What chip?

(Is this a nightmare?)

She looks down at her body, at the ridiculous patient gown, and then back at her aching wrists. And then she notices in her left arm a tiny, skin colored patch that covers a little bump. She can feel that there is something small under her skin.

A Decima chip. Wonderful.

She leans forward, ignoring the ECG repeating the command over and over again. She doesn’t even want to know how the Machine got into her room, how it can use the ECG like this, but she feels excitement flare up in her tired, hurting body. Shaw feels that escaping might be on today’s to-do-list and she’s more than okay with that.

She lifts her left arm and removes the patch with her teeth, all the while ignoring the blinding pain in her side. She can ignore pain and right now she has better things to do. With a disgusted huff, she spits the patch out and licks her lips. “Now what?” she asks herself and her voice sounds raspy as if she hasn’t used it for a while. She has no idea how long ago the last “interview” with Greer lies back.

(They could be all dead by now. And Greer is just playing with her like a cat with a mouse.)

(But actually, she should be the cat. And he kind of reminds her of a rat.)

( _Focus_. Stupid drugs.)

The concept of time becomes a fluid thing after lying in a room without any clocks or windows to measure time in some way. Hours, days and weeks bleed into one another until there is nothing left but this timeless limbo.

The ECG still doesn’t shut up and neither does the siren outside her room. There are some voices and steps outside, accompanied by barked orders.

Shaw stares at the bump. She knows that she has no sharp objects lying anywhere close to her, and even if, her hands are currently tied by handcuffs to this hospital bed. There is no other way to go about this.

And then she hesitates. She has to get her hands free first.

By ripping the two side elements of the bedframe out.

She starts with the left arm, because she can move it more freely than her right arm. Her bullet wounds are a little in the way of that, especially the last one that went through her right shoulder.

She huffs, pulls and ignores the sharp pain of handcuffs digging into her skin. Pain is good. It keeps her minds focused and awake. She groans and pulls harder, sure to rip her left hand off before even moving the bedframe. But then the plastic creaks and gives in, something breaking inside the frame. She can hear a screw dropping to the PVC floor coating. She smiles weakly and pretends not to wince when she lifts the now loose bedframe and rests it on her thigh to get her right hand free.

She really hopes the guards shouting orders at each other have a key to these handcuffs, or she’s fucked.

It takes her longer to get her right hand free, but eventually the hospital bed is officially wrecked and she takes a few deep breaths before staring at the chip in her left arm.

Time to face the real task.

The pain that flares up when her teeth break the skin is like a bucket filled with ice water being emptied upon her head. She hisses and spits some of the blood out, licking her lips and picks the Decima chip out. It’s tiny.

And now as useless as the handcuffs.

She drops it to the floor and hopes that it will still send GPS coordinates out. It’ll buy her some time.

M-O-R-R-I-S-O-N.

What the fuck. She looks at the ECG and questions for a hot second or two if she is dreaming or if the drugs damaged her perception of reality. But the beeping repeats the code and when she pulls the electrodes off her skin, it doesn’t stop spitting this nonsense out.

Shaw decides that at this point she has nothing to lose, with warm blood dripping out of her bite wound and the constant pain in her right side. She climbs out of bed on weak legs and shuffles on her bare feet to the door, probably looking like a moron with the bedframes weighing her still handcuffed arms down. Her back starts to hurt and her muscles aren’t used to this much movement.

(How much time has passed since the stock market exchange?)

W-A-I-T-1-7-S-E-C.

And Shaw starts to count.

She has to pee.

And she is hungry.

But above all she hopes that Harold’s Machine knows what it is doing. Her life literally depends on this beeped bullshit.

 _15…16…17_.

There is a loud click and the siren dies—and so does the light above the doorframe. The beeping is gone as well.

Someone used the current switch to turn everything off.

Shaw smiles.

Everything.

Also the keypad that locks the door. She prods the door open with her fingertips and starts to push it aside, working against the hydraulics of the door that allows it to open on its own—if there was electricity—and against the pain in her right side.

It’s embarrassing, really, how long it takes her to get out of that room.

The hallway is completely dark, but she can see the light beams of three flashlights in some distance. Three people are standing there and trying to figure the problem out.

Some male ego is sounding a little agitated. “Great, Morrison. Now you caused a blackout in this floor. Are you fucking crazy?”

Ah, now the Morrison thing makes more sense.

“Nothing else worked. Fuck off, I’ll turn it back on in a second.”

Shaw knows that her handcuffs will clatter when she moves and she is at a huge disadvantage here, because she is only wearing her patient gown and her condition is not the best. But she’s had worse. She keeps repeating this sentence and pretends this mantra crap really works.

If only.

Whatever, she can power through this.

Time to use some good ol’ fist techniques.

She takes the bedframe parts in both hands to reduce the clattering with the handcuffs and walks ahead with slow steps, trying to be silent. Her left shoulder ghosts over the wall, until it bumps into a metal box. She can hardly make out the letters on the glass in the faint light of the flashlights.

It says FIRE EXTINGUISHER.

She smiles thinly. Jackpot.

She’s only a few steps away from the three morons who keep inspecting the damn power distributor.

That’s how a joke should start. The punch line will be literally a punch, though. A punch with a fire extinguisher. Or maybe three, because all good things come in threes.

“Shit, what’s that?” A third voice asks alarmed, also male. The glass shreds of the box holding the extinguisher are now lying to her naked feet and she gets a good grip on the handle of that thing when the flashlight moves towards the noise she’s making and then she’s bathed in white light.

Two things happen:

1)      These three idiots should have never been assigned to be her guards, because instead of pulling their guns out of their thigh holsters, they just gape at her.

2)      She kinda digs the sound a skull makes when you smash a fire extinguisher against it. (Sadly it’s too dark to see the blood.)

This is closely followed by a lot of ducking and dodging, mainly on Shaw’s part. She only cashes in one punch against the left side of her face and she tastes fresh blood on her now broken bottom lip before she slams the next guard into the wall close to the open power distributor.

Hell. Somehow this feels extra exhausting when you have to carry additional weight around that is connected to your wrists. And she is out of shape.

Like, Fusco-level out of shape.

Her left arm becomes tired and she rams the fire extinguisher in her slipping grip against the stomach of the last man standing. He coughs a curse out, winces when the extinguisher drops on his foot and surrenders when she swings her left hand just right to hit his balls with the bedframe.

“What a bitch,” he splutters out and goes down like the loser he is.

Her chest is heaving in victory.

And hot, fresh pain that surges through her bullet wounds. Especially the chest, where the bullet nicked her right lung.

Shaw picks his flashlight up and groans. Leaning forward makes the throbbing in her right side only worse. With daft fingers she searches the man closest to her and finds a key card. She holds it under the light and reads his name. Morrison. He is squirming under her knees on his chest and she hits his temple with the flashlight, wincing a little bit at the sting that follows basically everywhere in her body.

Now the hallway is silent save for her ragged breathing. She continues reading the card.

 _Fort Huachuca Clinic_.

Great, she’s been brought to the hospital of a military base that is known to be a NSA facility of the US Army.

She keeps the plastic key card.

Shaw finds a key chain as well and after fumbling and trying some keys out she finally gets her hands free. A deep sigh of relief escapes her when she massages the raw, bleeding skin around her wrists.

And then she raids every pocket she can find. She stumbles upon some interesting things in Morrison’s jacket; a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, a zippo lighter, a HTC smartphone she quickly throws against the wall (because it’s probably connected to Samaritan and she’s running out of time), a Nokia 3310 (what the fuck) and Wrigley’s Big Red stripe gum.

She keeps the lighter, the Nokia phone (hopefully this one isn’t connected to Samaritan) and then she moves on to take his gun and the ammo he has hidden in the pockets of his pants.

The only good thing about patient gowns are the large pockets in front of them. She puts everything in there, breaks the smart phones of the other dimwits and takes some more ammo with her. For good measure.

And then she limps away, her bare feet making no sound on the cold floor of the hallway.

 

*

 

She has no idea what caused the alarm.

And then she remembers that the Machine was talking to her.

 

*

 

Something beeps in her gown pocket.

E-L-E-V-A-T-O-R. T-A-K-E-C-A-M-O-U-T.

The elevator is down the hallway and there is still no light except the little that comes out of the flashlight she took with her. The sign next to the elevator says PATHOLOGY II and that explains why no one is down here.

She presses the button and takes the safety off the gun, checking if it’s fully loaded. It’s a Glock 17 and she can live with that.

Her heart calms down a little while she waits for the elevator to finally show up. She leans against the wall, next to the button she’s just pressed, to avoid being detected by the camera she was asked to shoot. Duh. As if she doesn’t know this.

The doors slide open and she steps out of the shadows, finds the camera in the right corner immediately and takes it out with one precise shot. Even with a little shaky hand she still has it in her. Wasting no more time, she looks at the buttons and listens to some more Morse code coming out of that prehistoric phone.

G-R-D-F-L-R.

Ground-floor.

She pushes the button next to the word “Ground-floor” and nothing happens. This whole “being in an elevator that isn’t working” thing feels too familiar for her taste and she can’t help but look at the wall opposite the elevator, half-expecting to find an overdrive button.

But there is nothing.

“What the hell,” she mumbles, pushing the button a few more times, before realizing that there are two more button underneath it, one called “Pathology I” and the last one has no description whatsoever.

A secret floor.

With a light tremor in her fingers, she takes the keycard out, holds it against the sensor above the buttons and tries the ground-floor one again.

The door closes and she starts to move upwards.

“I hope you know what you are doing,” Shaw mutters to no one in specific. She feels a little dizzy again and her senses are numbing down. She knows that this is due to the blood loss she’s currently experiencing and some bandage around her left wound where the chip once was would be nice.

3-R-D-D-O-O-R.

The elevator stops and there are a lot more voices coming from around the corner, a phone is ringing and she can hear the cracking of a radio. Thankfully no one was waiting for the elevator to show up and as far as she can tell this part of the hallway is abandoned. No camera.

Alright, so this feels like a trap.

But the machine would know this, right?

(She sent them to the stock market exchange. Maybe that damn AI knows shit.)

Her body leans with a subtle motion a little forward, just to allow her to have a peak around the corner. Some soldier is talking into a radio in his hands, while waving some clipboard with forms in it around.

He looks busy and distracted.

With a final huff she takes matters into her hand and starts limping forward. There is nothing wrong with her leg, but the moment she tries to walk in her usual way she gets stitches in her right side.

No one passes her by, no one yells at her to stop, nothing. She reaches the door with no trouble whatsoever and knowing Samaritan this can’t be good, right?

Then again, she did leave the chip behind in her room. And so far no one seems to know that there is a blackout going on in the secret floor.

She wonders if the administrative of this military base or hospital is aware of the fact that some robot uses a secret hallway as a place for interrogations. She reaches door number three, opens it and slips into the room.

It’s a locker room.

Luckily, an _empty_ locker room.

She seems to be in some kind of ‘employees only’ area.

S-A-N-T-A-N-A-V-A-L-E-R-I-A.

With a heavy sigh she locks the door from the inside, her gun lifted in her shaking left hand. Shaw walks through the rows of black lockers until she finds the one with the name tag “Santana, Valeria” on it. It takes some time to open the lock, but it gives in with the sixth hit of the Glock’s handle.

She’s ready to pass out at this point.

Out of breath and annoyed at everything, she searches the locker and finds clothes in her size; a green hoodie, a white tank top, denim skinny jeans and black Nike Air’s. Not really her style, but whatever. She can’t be picky.

It takes forever to get out of the patients gown and while she’s standing just in her underwear she can see her bloody bandages covering her bullet wounds. She’s also lost some weight.

She climbs into the new clothes. Groans. Hates Greer. Imagines how she’s going to break each bone in Martine’s body. Hates Greer some more. And then returns to the locker to take out the backpack that is filled with a water bottle, a wallet that has 76 bucks total in it and a pair of dark sunglasses.

She puts them on. Drags the hood over her head. She might as well embrace the ridiculous fashion choices this person decided to make when she bought these clothes. Then she puts the stuff from her patient gown into the backpack, except the phone, the keycard and some of the spare ammo. Then she drinks some of the water and it’s like she found something to drink after spending an eternity in some dumb hospital room as a war hostage.

Yeah, she didn’t imagine her trip to the stock market exchange would end like this. With slow motions, she shoulders the backpack and ignores the pain or the angry growling of her still empty stomach.

“What now?” she asks, looking at the Nokia phone.

C-A-R-G-O-A-R-E-A. A-A-1-0-1-2.

Oh, she gets to steal a car or truck or whatever. That’s a plan she can get behind. With the flick of her hand she unlocks the door, slips out of the room and tiptoes further down the hallway. The phone, or actually the machine, has no further injections. She must be going in the right direction.

After five minutes of this ridiculous nonsense, she finally reaches another sliding door secured by a keypad. She hovers with the stolen keycard over it and it opens smoothly.

Still no cameras.

Maybe to minimize the possibility that the Machine would find her via one of these cameras if they were installed here.

(How did the Machine find her?)

Surely this is also the place she was dragged out of the truck that has transported her here. Or did they bring her in here by plane? A private jet sponsored by Samaritan?

Well, she did make a trip across the entire United States, without dying. However they’d done it, they did a great job at keeping her alive with three bullet wounds.

She opens a white metal door and steps outside. The air is lukewarm and fresh, because the sun isn’t out yet. The Nokia phone says it’s not even 4am. She grits her teeth. It won’t stay like this forever. She’s in Arizona after all. Heat won’t help her state one bit.

She moves forward.

There is a row of parking spots for trucks and some of them are taken. She’s lucky that the cargo area isn’t going on forever and it doesn’t take her long to find the truck.

It’s open and filled with packages, tied together on a few euro pallets.

She’s about to go to the driver’s side when an angry vibration from her back pocket of her denim jeans stops her.

That’s a no, she concludes, not sure why she even listens to the Machine. She’s not cut out for this crap.

And yet.

“You want me to get into the back of that fucking truck, don’t you?” she hisses, not sure how long it will take to get company. “This better works in my favor, robot god,” she gives in, climbing up to hide behind one of the loaded euro pallets.

And then she waits.

 

*

 

On the other side of the United States, Root rips duct tape off of her latest victim’s lips. He’s a Decima agent and she’s lost any interest in even pretending that she cares when he winces in pain and gives her a sour look.

“Where is she?” She makes it very easy for him, she thinks, because she is holding a picture of Shaw in her hands. And she’s getting better at looking at this picture, too. Her fingers don’t tremble anymore and her voice is sharp and cutting, like the death glare she’s giving that sorry excuse for a human being. The worst kind of bad code.

The young man shrugs, but his eyes betray him. He’s afraid of her, because he’s already heard of her.

She smiles, shoves the picture into the back pocket of her dark skinny jeans and takes one of her guns in her hand. “Last chance,” she says in her sing-song voice, now showing teeth in her smile. It’s a warning and the man knows it. An IT-student, deep in debt, a sick father sitting in New Orleans and hoping for his son to have a better future. It’s always the tragic backstories that spoil promising individuals before they even truly start to live.

And Samaritan thrives on them.

Too bad that his son decided to join the crusade of an almighty AI. He was at the stock market exchange and now it’s time to pay. “I wish it didn’t need to end like this, Terry. I really do,” she whispers, her smile fading into something akin to a grimace that foreshadows nothing good.

“She’s probably dead and you are wasting your time! Get over it!” he yells at her, covered in sweat. His with voice echoes through the empty warehouse in Brooklyn.

“Where is her body?” she asks next, because she just needs closure. That’s all she wants. She is still angry at the Machine for telling her to stop. She is confused and angry at the Machine’s choice to abandon her in these trying times, when Samaritan looks like it’s going to win the war. And She’d decided that Root should stop looking for the one person that has actually meant something to her.

She just needs an answer. And if She doesn’t want to share the things She knows, she’ll find the answers on her own.

Terry forms a thin line with his lips and gives her a defiant look.

He is just as useless as any other agent she’s captured, interrogated and then—she got rid of them.

Only when the head of the young man lolls forward she realizes that she’s already pulled that trigger.

It’s 6:34am and Root hasn’t slept in 18 hours.

 

*

 

Shaw is glad she took the flashlight with her, because now she doesn’t have to sit in total darkness while the truck is moving. Her sunglasses are back in the backpack, together with the now empty water bottle.

They passed the control point with no trouble a few minutes ago and she is slowly relaxing, but not too much, because if she falls asleep right now, then she’ll die.

At least her left arm stopped bleeding.

She takes the Nokia phone out and goes through the contacts. Morrison had only two numbers saved, no names. But gathering from the affectionate text messages, one was his wife and the other number belonged to his daughter.

Well, some of the bad guys happen to have families. Interesting to note is that Morrison used this old phone by choice, knowing that it wouldn’t alert Samaritan. This phone’s wet dream is to connect to Wi-Fi, but since it isn’t able to, it’s harder to hack it.

Which is pretty telling how loyal Morrison was. Why would a guard hired by Samaritan need such a pre-historic device?

She doesn’t care. The battery is still full and knowing that model it won’t die on her anytime soon. She could probably die before that.

Minutes pass and the boredom takes over. She opens the menu, clicks through the different options and finds something that actually sounds like it could kill some time.

She’d escaped a heavily guarded Samaritan building without bumping into any real obstacles and now she’s sitting surrounded by darkness in a truck, playing _Snake_.

 

*

 

And yet she can’t stop thinking how easily this whole escape had gone down while she feeds the snake on the monochrome display. She wonders where this truck will stop and if the oxygen will last until then.

A part of her hopes it’s heading to New York.

 

*

 

After ten minutes of driving she gets a text message.

**COUNT TO 60. SHOOT AT RIGHT BACK TIRE.**

Shaw starts counting, gets to her feet and takes the gun out from the back of her pants. Using the cargo inside of this truck as support she limps to the back and tries to estimate where the tire exactly is. The Machine supplies help by beeping faster the closer she gets until there is one long tone.

She is still counting.

It’s unbelievably hot in here and she can feel sweat running down her back. Maybe she should’ve taken the ugly hoodie off. She pushes the hood off of her head and reaches the number 60. Her finger, despite feeling a little wobbly while moving it, pulls the trigger three times, and there is a horrible noise outside, underneath her feet and Shaw barely has time to wonder if the Machine knows what happens if you do a stunt like this, before the damn truck does a few somersaults.

 

*

 

It borders on stupid luck that only her left wrist is sprained. Well, and there is a bleeding cut above her left eye, but that’s the least of her problems. There is dust and the smell of gasoline everywhere. It makes her want to cough. Or puke.

Shaw crawls out of that truck and curses the Machine while doing so.

“Why didn’t you just let me steal this truck?” She knows why. Because she’d have never made it past the control point.

The Machine says nothing.

Once she’s outside, she spends some time on her back on the asphalt, watching how the sky slowly turns from blue into various shades of red orange and yellow. Sun rise.

And that means there will be heat in a few.

Lots of it.

She gets up, coughs again, checks if there is some more damage to her already beaten up body and starts moving. A rib or two might be in bad shape, now that she’s walked a few steps but she ignores the new pain just like the old pain.

She’s not going back to the Samaritan hotel of doom.

She gets another text message. It’s an address to a veterinary clinic.

Shaw can’t help herself. “Why?”

**CONDITION OF ASSET CRITICAL. IMMEDIATE MEDICAL CARE HAS TO BE PROVIDED.**

She starts walking forward, and doesn’t even look back at the wreck of a truck. “This is a joke,” she tells the phone and glares at the monochrome display. She can patch herself up just fine. Give her a first-aid kit and she’ll be ready to go in no time. She waits for the cars to drive by and crosses the highway.

**PROBABILTY OF DEATH WITHIN 24HRS WITHOUT PROVIDED MEDICAL CARE: 78,89%**

Alright, so the Machine has a point. She can’t feel her right side anymore, her wrists are burning and her vision starts to blur with each step she takes in the instructed direction and she can barely move her left hand. Even breathing hurts.

She just hopes she finds Winterhaven Drive in time. She also hopes the veterinarian in that vet clinic isn’t present yet, because they would most likely call the cops of Sierra Vista if they saw her in her awful state.

And if that happens, Samaritan agents won’t be far.

She sighs.

And wipes sweat off her forehead.

Curses when she’s reminded by an angry sting of her bullet wounds that moving her right arm up is a dumb idea.

Also, a shower at some point wouldn’t be terrible either.

The walk takes forever.

Cars drive by and ignore her and the crashed truck.

She could swear that the birds are trying to talk to her.

(She is dehydrated; by the feel of it, the bandages covering her injuries are soaked with blood and she can’t say tell for sure when was the last time she ate something.)

The sun manages to climb higher on the horizon, mocking her with its heat, when she finally turns left and spots the veterinary.

It’s still so far away.

So many steps she has to take.

“Fucking finally,” Shaw mutters with a heavy tongue.

Hopefully this vet is closer than her death.

 

*

 

The lights are on when she nears the backdoor of that clinic. The Machine told her to.

It also suggested to put her sunglasses back on, because there might be cameras around and she’s still very close to Samaritan’s looming presence.

She removes the gun from her waistband and takes the safety off. And then she knocks.

Well, she actually kicks the door, because even holding the gun in her right hand is an adventure and her left hand is pretty damaged to do anything more than hurt.

Okay, so maybe she’ll need a helping hand or two to take care of her wounds.

The door opens and a confused guy with a scruff and glasses looks at her. Confusion turns into worry. “Oh my god, what happened to you? Are you alright?” And then he sees the gun, because she finally manages to move her right arm a bit up.

“If you call 911, I will shoot you,” she threatens him with little breath left. She’s pretty sure that her gun is aiming at the guy’s right kneecap.

Her heart feels like it’s about to leave her ribcage. It’s too hot for cardiac arrest. It’s too hot for everything, to be honest. Especially breathing. Or standing. Or talking.

The vet blinks and looks dumbfounded at her words. “But…” His hands reach out towards her by default.

She wants to push past him and order him to get ready for stitching her wounds up and that she needs to fix her left wrist somehow and some food would be nice too. And if he doesn’t listen, she’ll use some tricks they teach you in 101 beat someone up classes.

But everything she manages to do is gasp a breathless “Listen, asshole, I have no time for—”

And then she passes out.

 

*

 

( **I TOLD YOU SO, AGENT SHAW.** )

 

*

 

When she wakes up again, the sun is still not entirely up and someone is stitching up the cut above her left eye. It barely stings, and that means she’s got something for the pain.

“Welcome back, Miss—umm, well, I suppose you won’t tell me your name. And judging by your injuries, that’s completely okay, I suppose. I just really think you should go to the police and report whoever has done this to you, because honestly—”

“Just keep stitchin’, doc,” she mumbles, allowing herself to enjoy lying on the metal table that is actually made for pets. Like dogs. She likes dogs a lot. And she also likes the pain killers he gave her. Her legs dangle off the edge and it’s not the most comfortable thing, but it’s better than being outside. She’s only wearing her bra and the denim pants she’s stolen, but the bandages on her stomach, chest and shoulder don’t feel sticky with blood any longer, so this guy can live.

Apparently he had to take her top off to change the dressing and clean her wounds. Maybe even redo a few stitches. Who knows what surgeon Samaritan had recruited to fix her in a way that she wouldn’t die.

She focuses on her surroundings.

She can hear sirens.

Her stomach grumbles.

Shaw can’t wait to get out of here.

“There was an accident,” the vet says slowly, making a concentrated face, while using a scissor to cut the stitches. His tone is soft, as if he is talking to a spooked animal. The way he behaves and the fact that he helps her without really demanding answers reminds her a little of Reese.

She gives him a bored look without moving her head while he is still fixing the wound close to her eye. “Really?”

He just nods and shrugs. If he was implying that she looks like someone who survived a truck crash, he doesn’t elaborate it further.

No wonder the Machine sent her here. This guy is like a puppy; harmless and too friendly for his own good.

“There, done,” he tells her. He rolls away on his chair, takes the white gloves off and gives her another concerned look. “You really should go to a hospital, though,” he starts again and maybe anyone else would’ve found his words touching and comforting.

But she isn’t just anyone.

She has no time for this crap. “Nice try, but I am kinda in a hurry. Where is my stuff?”

He makes a defeated sound and points to the white cupboard with lots of drawers. Her backpack, rest of her clothes and the gun are lying there.

She sits up and still feels dizzy.

Shaw really needs to stop at a drive in, as soon as she’s out of here.

She gets dressed, notes how that loser turns around to give her space (he already saw her without her top on, like, dude, what is your point) and tucks the Glock in the back of her waistband. Her sprained wrist is actually just bandaged, and it hurts to even move her left arm. Whatever. Can’t blame this vet for not noticing that the biting wound and the injuries from the stupid handcuffs aren’t the only wounds on that hand.

Her hand fishes that dreadful phone out of her back pocket. She can’t be totally sure, but she was dead to the world for almost 30 minutes.

She ignores the mocking first message and moves on to the next one.

**BLACK FORD CROWN VICTORIA. OUTSIDE.**

The vet has turned around and gives her a curious look. “Am I going to get in trouble for helping you?” His eyes look on the surface of the cupboard, probably looking for the gun she has tucked safely away.

Her phone beeps again.

**SAMARITAN WILL EVENTUALLY FIND HIM HERE. ASSET NEEDS TO CONVINCE HIM TO LEAVE THE CLINIC.**

She pretends that she just checked the time on the phone. “You should go home, doc.” Her tone suggests danger. “I have to go as well,” she announces next, shoulders the backpack on her good shoulder and nods in goodbye.

“You sure you should be alone right now?”

It’s almost sweet how affected he seems, when she turns around to regard him with one last look. “Don’t be stupid and go home. You might also want to get rid of all this,” she muses, pointing at the bloody bandages lying to his feet.

He adjusts his glasses anew. “I have that feeling that I could get killed for helping you.”

“Be a good citizen and get rid of the evidence of me being here, and you’ll live to see your grandchildren grow up and annoy the crap out of you. Or whatever it is you want to live for, I don’t care.” She sighs, walking out of the room, towards the parking lot.

He follows her.

“Keep the wounds clean, but don’t take a shower for the next few days. And if it gets infected, go to a hospital.”

She salutes him in mockery, puts the sunglasses back on and looks at her phone.

“Will he die?” It’s like talking to these stupid oracle toys they sell for kids.

**PROBABILITY OF DEATH: 53,15%**

“I survived with less,” she mumbles to herself and marches with a slight limp towards the car the Machine wants her to take.

It’s parked next to a silver car.

Of course this guy drives a silver Toyota Prius.

 

*

 

The car isn’t locked when she throws the backpack on the backseat and climbs behind the wheel. The key is already in the ignition. She turns GPS on and finds it set for a place called Naco.

“There is no airport. How do I get to New York with no airport?” Shaw frowns at the phone in her right hand and doubts once again why she follows its instructions.

**ASSET IS NEEDED ELSEWHERE. MEXICO CITY.**

Then again, it got her out alive of a fucking Samaritan facility, so what the hell.

Go big or go home.

She starts the engine and pulls out of the parking spot.

 

*

 

Almost an hour later, she slides with the car in a parking spot in front of some cheap motel building. 500 meters further down the street and she’s already in Mexico.

Amazing.

On her way down here, she’s ordered almost the entire breakfast menu of the closest McDonald’s she could find and devoured her meal in her car while driving—mostly one handed.

Well, that green hoodie doesn’t look that much worse with some scrambled eggs on it.

She takes the backpack, hides the gun under the hoodie and puts the phone in the front pocket of her jeans. She walks with slow steps into the motel (because, yeah, for a vet the guy did a great job with the stitches and all, but she’s still tired as hell and also blood loss can’t be magically cured with three cups coffee) and nears the counter with a bored teenager that keeps answering text messages.

“I need a room,” Shaw informs her, her tone nothing but hostile. She could fall asleep where she’s standing right now. Probably even while standing, to be honest.

The girl looks up, sighs and types something into the computer to check what rooms are free. “Debit or cash?”

“How much?”

“39 dollars per night.”

She looks into the stolen wallet and she’s glad she has it in cash. Using a stolen debit card this close to a Samaritan headquarter? Yeah, that’s a suicide mission on its own.

She pays, she gets the key and a room number and a brief explanation on how to find it.

Shaw doesn’t wait until the end of that speech.

She leans against the door, once she’s inside and takes a deep breath with closed eyes. It’s fucking hot outside, the AC in this room is not doing a really good job, but at least the room looks clean when she inspects it.

And then she finds a brown envelope on her bed.

No name, nothing.

She opens it and empties its contents on the blanket, expecting to see a death threat printed out by some evil Samaritan printer.

Instead, she finds some faked papers with her picture and a new alias on them (why the Machine decided to give her the name ‘Cecilia Carter’ is beyond her), a debit card, 2000 dollars in cash, a key with a tag attached to it that has an address and a map of Mexico City. There is also a charger for her phone.

Shaw throws the backpack on the bed and pulls the gun out. She doesn’t call out when she opens the first door that turns out to be a wardrobe. She shuffles towards the second door in front of the bed and kicks it open, aiming with the Glock ahead, before turning the lights on.

She draws the curtains of the shower back that reveal nothing but some ugly black-green mold. Yummy.

She clears her throat. She totally didn’t really think that Root would be hiding in there.

“Was Root here? Did she bring this stuff?” she asks slowly, placing the gun on the table that stands right under the windowsill. Her tone is neutral, but even as she says it she wonders if Root would truly just drop this envelope off without waiting for her on that bed, just to fuck with her head with one of her stupid innuendos.

She swallows and reaches for the phone. She unlocks the keypad with quick movements using the almost forgotten pre-modern button combo ‘menu’ and ‘+’. Fucking Nokia phones, man.

 **PRIMARY ANALOG INTERFACE IS SAFE**.

That’s…not answering her question. Shaw furrows her brows and sighs deeply. And contemplates about what to ask next. The Machine’s answer implies that she isn’t safe, but that’s a given. She’s not even an hour away from Fort Huachuca and the imbeciles of Samaritan will find her, hopefully, after she’s got some dearly needed sleep. “Primary analog interface?” she decides to ask and stares at the display.

One second later she has a reply.

**YOU ARE MY SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE NOW, AGENT SHAW.**

Well isn’t today her lucky day?

“Hurray,” she groans.

She needs to pee.

 

*

 

Shaw wakes up to the original ringtone of Nokia and the urge to smash that phone against a wall goes from zero to 100 real fast. But knowing this model, she’d probably just damage the wall. Ugh. Why didn’t Morrison own some funky old Sony phone? Or hell, she’d even take a goddamn Motorola flip phone over this rock of technology.

She turns on her left side, picks the phone from the nightstand table up and groans when the green light of the display hits her. It’s 2:48am.

And she’s got a new message. Of course she does.

**LEAVE WITHIN TEN MINUTES.**

Great.

Samaritan agents seem to have found her. Just…ugh. It’s too early for this. She feels like she’s had her eyes closed just for five minutes and not for several hours.

She packs her stuff with graceless, limping movements, gets dressed into the same gross clothes in record time and walks out of the room with her hand on the gun. The hallway is only half lit and completely empty. Someone’s snoring at the end of the way. She hopes she’s not taking some germs from this gross place with her when she shuts the door.

The reception is empty as well, some card with an ugly ass handwriting that says “brb important phone call” is attached to the table.

Seven minutes later she’s on the road again, holding the wheel in place with her knees while she puts her new documents into the stolen wallet. Valeria Santana’s stuff ends up in the glove compartment.

She is nearing the check point that’ll lead her to Mexico. She still has no idea what the Machine wants her for in Mexico City, but according to the GPS she has a trip of almost 23 hours ahead of her, not calculating the breaks and traffic jams that will be inevitable.

It’s times like these when she wishes she could just go and steal a jet again.

The guard checking her papers is so bored, yawning every two seconds that she could have probably used the stolen ID of Santana and still be granted permission to drive ahead.

Cecilia Carter is now heading to Mexico City to visit her family, but Shaw thinks that this is actually her running away from Samaritan and it feels wrong. She should be heading back to New York to kick Martine’s ass.

She speeds right past a speed limit sign and feels oddly free.

For now, it’s best to take a short break before she returns to New York.

 

*

 

She splits the drive into two parts. Around afternoon she finds another cheap motel and sleeps for a few hours before she continues to drive towards a city that has twice the number of people living there than New York.

Well, the Machine knows best how to play hide and seek, after all.

 

*

 

Shaw grits her teeth. Her Spanish may be a little rusty, but this guy totally cut her off and the traffic is bad enough as it is. With rolled down windows and the black sunglasses on her nose she shows him the finger, honks and adds an angry: “¡ _Hijo de puta_!”

She’ll ditch this car and find a motorcycle. She sees them passing by, squeezing with ease through the dense traffic. It’s absolutely terrible to be in a car right now.

Two hours later, she finally reaches the destination that was written down on that address tag with the keys. She leaves the car parked in a place where a round sign with a crossed black E clearly tells her that this is a no parking zone. Who cares.

She steps into the elevator, presses ‘3’ and hopes that there will be food in the fridge. She has no idea how the Machine manages to organize all these things without involving any of the nerds from New York, but it somehow does.

And if she weren’t so tired, she might’ve asked about this.

She finds the door, opens it and—steps into a studio apartment.

That’s a joke, right?

Shaw takes a deep breath and drops the backpack to the floor. “How long do I have to stay here?” She hopes the answer will be “one week”. Or even something vague like “couple of days.”

What she gets makes her roll her eyes and clench her not so bad hand around the phone into a fist.

 **SEVEN WEEKS**.

Holy shit.

 

*

 

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Miss Groves.” Harold gives her one of his worried looks and she knows that she shouldn’t blame him for his reaction. It’s been over three weeks now and she still has no lead to an answer about where Shaw is. Whether alive or dead—she just needs to know.

She nods slowly, contemplating if she should share the Machine’s instructions with him. “I have a job interview, Harry.” She puts the laptop into her bag, adds the charger to it and looks over the desk to check if she’s forgotten something.

Her eyes fall to Shaw’s faked passports and pictures still lying there.

Harold stops typing on his keyboard when he senses a change in her demeanor. “This paper chase you are doing won’t bring you peace,” he murmurs softly, turning the office chair towards her.

She gives him a small smile on her own. “It’s about way more than just that, Harold. We are still at war and it’s time to take some precautions.”

“If I am to be honest with you, do we really want to endanger more people?”

Root blinks and zips the laptop bag closed. “We can’t win a war like this,” she tells him, lowering her head a little. He has to understand, he has to see that they are currently in a dead end. They have to find a game changer, or Samaritan will suffocate them all, one by one. “I do wish we could do it your way, but it’s time to stop being simply the good guys.”

“I know you are hurting. Rest assured, we are all having a hard time adjusting to this…new reality we were thrown in, but this? This path of revenge? This is not who we are.”

She takes the bag in her hand, gives Harold one last look and starts walking towards the stairs leading up to the door. “Maybe this is who I am, after all,” she throws over her shoulder, before she disappears.

Harold’s sigh follows her outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr [tinygrumpshaw](http://tinygrumpshaw.tumblr.com) if you have questions or want to say hi!


	2. time to shake the hands of fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am SO SORRY. this took way longer than i planned. ugh. ANYWAY. i hope the length and content of that chapter will make the long wait at least not the absolute worst? on top of that, have my promise that i'll try to get the next chapter sooner to you. enjoy!
> 
> (shoutout to Jas, my life savior.)

**day one**

 

The first thing she does: sleep.

 

*

 

**day three**

 

Time to assess the damage Greer and his puppets have done to her.

She is standing in the tiny bathroom and stares at her reflection. She looks pale and she lost some weight. She feels like shit. The area around the cut is red and a little swollen. She has two broken ribs and her chest is covered in bruises in shades of blue and violet.

She sighs and opens the mirror cabinet to retrieve the small first aid kit she’s found there. The Machine (or whoever took care of that apartment before she’s arrived here) put  some bandages and elastic therapeutic black tape next to the first aid kit.

It takes her almost an eternity to apply the tape correctly and fix her ribs. She grits her teeth when she moves her good arm and wonders if there is any logic behind this plan of hiding.

She doesn’t do hiding.

But it does sound reasonable to get some rest. It’s just that the Machine still cloaks the reason for her stay in Mexico City in secrecy and it is testing Shaw’s patience. No matter how often she asks the Nokia phone why she’s here and why she can’t just go back to New York in a few days, she just receives a short text message:

 **STAY**.

She slams the cabinet closed and the mirror cracks.

 

*

 

**day four**

 

Shaw is bored shitless. There is nothing to do.  She doesn’t even have to do groceries, because some guy comes every day around noon to deliver her food. The Machine is somehow paying that guy and also knows exactly what kind of food Shaw likes.

She should be creeped out by this.

But for the most part, she started to simply accept these kind of things and rolls with them.

It’s not even 11am and right now she’s entertaining herself with some crappy Spanish soap operas and pretends it serves to refresh her Spanish a little. The reality is that she’s still too weak to move around much and that’s why she’s benched on her bed-couch in this tiny studio apartment that doesn’t even own a decent AC.

It’s barbaric.

She pokes at her bullet wounds and grimaces when she puts too much pressure on them. The stitches start to get itchy.

And the Machine still doesn’t talk to her.

She blows out her cheeks and changes TV channel again.

The doorbell rings.        

She narrows her eyes and stares at the phone lying in front of her on the coffee table, right next to her loaded gun. “Who is it?” she asks, not really worried for her safety. No one has bothered her so far.

**OPEN THE DOOR.**

Well, that doesn’t sound like there is some imminent danger looming around.

 She picks the gun up and walks to the intercom next to the door. “ _¿Sí?_ ”

“ _Tengo una entrega para usted_ ,” a male voice replies and he sounds bored enough to be some delivery guy.

Her hand around the gun relaxes a little. “ _Llevala al tercer piso_ ,” she sighs and pushes the button that opens the main door downstairs. She tucks the gun in the back of her yoga pants, takes the door chain off and unlocks both locks, waiting for the guy to appear with the next surprise delivery the Machine ordered for her. Online, she thinks.

The elevator opens at the end of the hallway and a man with one package steps out. He hands her a PDA to sign and she remembers that she better sign as Cecilia Carter, even though the guy who eyes her from head to toe won’t pay too much attention to that. She makes some weird loopy sign on the pad and hands it back, before motioning him to hand her the package. Luckily, there is nothing too heavy in it.

He nods in goodbye and walks over to the elevator when Shaw starts to close the door and put the door chain back on.

She cuts the cord around the box and opens it.

It’s a laptop.

She pries the laptop free of the foil that was taped around the device and touches the smooth surface. Connected to the charger she turns it on and sets it up. The studio apartment doesn’t have an AC, but at least it comes with fast wi-fi. Small victory. She is about to check the wi-fi router for the password when the Machine sends her a message with the code.

She sighs and types the combination in. A few clicks later, and she is facing the latest news from New York City. She starts to skim through the articles, going back to older news just to see what she’s missed during her time of absence.

And then she glares at the webcam. “This is what you refer to as ‘they are safe’?” she asks and glares harder. Not all news from the past three weeks write about it, but the first week after the stock market crash two idiots in masks caused quite the mayhem in New York.

Shaw knows damn well whose faces are hiding beneath the black masks. She’s gonna kill Reese and Root simply for being so reckless.

She directs her gaze back at the Machine and takes the Nokia phone in her hand. “The need to know I am alive,” she mumbles, starting to type in one of the phone numbers she knows by heart. She isn’t sure though if she can reach them outside the mesh network Finch setup.

She’ll never know, because the Machine turns the phone off and opens the command processor of her laptop to type in “DON’T.”

“Why?”

“LAY LOW.”

Shaw grits her teeth, clenches her good hand into a fist and closes the window with the messages of the Machine. She closes the laptop and decides to waste the rest of the day on her couch-bed, watching some silly-ass Spanish soap operas.

 

*

 

**day seven**

 

Shaw wakes up for no reason at all. And yet, it’s like some sort of fog has lifted off her memories. Her brain replays certain scenes in her sleep.

She remembers now.

Why she only sees Greer’s face in her memories, and never Martine’s.

Why she still knows that the blonde bitch was next to her prisoner bed, just on the other side, where she couldn’t look, because the drugs kept her lying still. Paralyzed. Immobile. Easy to handle.

She remembers Martine’s delighted chuckles.

And the cold pain. The sharp edges of the scalpel. The agitated beeping of her ECG.

She kept reopening her wounds. Greer asked questions.

And she ignored them, repeating the same string of words, said by the same voice in her head over and over again, until she became that sentence. She breathed it in and out, whenever gritting her teeth against the furious sting in her side wasn’t enough.

“ _You should know that torture never produces good intel… Well, almost never._ ”

She is pretty sure, she spat these words in Greer’s ugly wrinkle face at least once.

 

*

 

**day ten**

 

Shaw got rid of her stitches a few days ago because the itching had been driving her up the wall. Same with the tape on her torso.

Besides, the wounds look way better now, and the fresh, rosy skin won’t break any time soon if she stays away from dangerous situations. Surprisingly enough, she’s probably going to die of boredom rather than some bullets flying her way on some dangerous mission.

There is no mission.

The Machine is still forcing her to do nothing.

Shaw kills the time of each day by starting it with a long run, a savory breakfast and setting a secure mesh network up using the Machine’s directions. Its mechanics are similar to the one Finch set up in New York.

It’s the kind of nerd stuff she could live without, but she stopped questioning it. Also, the robot god mentioned something about “a secure line for communication”, so now the only thing missing is a phone that could connect to this network and maybe an earpiece.

She isn’t sure if she wants to have the Machine in her ear, though, even if she had the right equipment.

Shaw is busy being bitter about the Machine keeping her in the dark as to why she can’t simply contact Finch and the rest of the chaos brigade to let them know that she’s escaped Samaritan clutches and is currently staying in Mexico City to get back to her old form.

She stares at the message on the monochrome display and wishes desperately she could get rid of this brick of a phone.

However, she can’t because a) the Machine did save her ass and b) it’s a matter of time until Samaritan’s agents will trace her whereabouts and find her here. It’d be sheer stupidity to face the wrath of an all seeing god without her own robot god by her side.

Even if that robot god is sending her one word encouragements people hope to find in fortune cookies.

It’s ridiculous.

She opens the fridge and starts to pick the ingredients out for some mean pizza.

 

*

 

**day nineteen**

 

She’s officially losing her mind.

Jogging and swimming keep her barely sane and while she’s almost back to her regular weight and condition, she wishes she could just go back to her old job, preferably in New York, where the others probably stopped looking for her. She’s been gone for almost six weeks now.

The Machine keeps silent as to why she can’t tell them the reason.

“Just tell me,” she complains, shaking with the Nokia phone as if it would somehow affect the AI. It’s hard to fight with an invisible entity. “Why does my escape have to remain a secret? Did something happen to them?” She’s checking the New Yorker news at least once a day. And so far she still keeps finding some small tidbits about Detective Fusco and Detective Riley. No masked Root, though.

She sighs. “I won’t go to New York. But why don’t you want them to know?”

For a few seconds nothing happens, and Shaw is certain that she won’t get a reply for that one. Which wouldn’t be a surprise. It’s happened all the times she’s asked about this before.

**SHE’D COME FOR YOU AND SAMARITAN FOLLOWS HER EVERY STEP. SAMARITAN’S AGENTS WOULD FIND YOU. AND KILL ALL OF YOU. I FAILED YOU ONCE, SAMEEN. IT WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN. STAY.**

Shaw’s eyes widen. It’s the longest reply she’s gotten about this matter so far. She stares at the letters on the tiny display and takes a deep breath.

She knows who the Machine is talking about.

There is a tight knot where her beating heart drums in her chest.

She clears her throat. “Was that so hard?” Instead of sounding pissed, she mostly just sounds tired.

 **YOU ARE WELCOME**.

Shaw rolls her eyes.

 

*

 

**day twenty-one**

 

The Machine’s ordered a smart phone and an earpiece for her, right after she set the mesh network up. Something she found out about _after_ the hardware arrived. She’s now facing a new phone and the fact that she will have a robot god whispering nonsense into her ear.

“Don’t talk to me unless my life is in danger,” she warns the Machine and adjusts the earpiece a little. Then she reaches for her mug filled with coffee.

“VERY WELL, SAMEEN SHAW.”

She almost spits the sip of coffee right back into the mug. “Never do that again,” she hisses, glaring at the built-in webcam of her open laptop. She was about to check the news again.

“WHY?”

Shaw exhales a long breath through her nose. “Because I don’t want you to use her voice saying my name, dumbass.”

There is static in her ear and she groans. And then: “ROOT LIKES IT WHEN I DO IT.”

“Also don’t use _my_ voice saying her name,” she continues to rage, not sure why she hasn’t ripped the earpiece out yet.

“YOU ARE MORE DIFFICULT THAN PRIMARY ANALOG INTERFACE.”

Shaw relaxes. “Tough shit.”

 

*

 

**day twenty-five**

 

Shaw wakes up covered in sweat and with aching ribs in her chest. She hates that dream. It’s different from the ones where she walks down memory lane and sees Greer’s yellow teeth or hears Martine’s silent laughter of amusement.

Still a memory, though. Just a different one.

The gunshots and her screams still ring in her ears.

“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

Martine’s smug face still hovers over her lying form on the cold floor when she closes her eyes again.

“Sure,” she lies.

 

*

 

**day thirty-two**

 

One day she ends up at _El Zócalo_ , the Plaza de la Constitución. She roams around the main plaza and mingles between groups of over eager tourists who take pictures of every step they take.

She walks around, orders lunch at some restaurant that has - according to the Machine - over one hundred positive reviews on Google Plus and tries to not overthink the fact that she is basically having a good time in a place with great food, nice weather and no Samaritan agents so far, while her friends are putting their lives on the line of danger in New York, probably still looking for her.

Checking the news of New York doesn’t really keep her up to date with what the team is occupied right now. Yesterday some private emails of some rich business man named Khan got leaked and Shaw suspects that he might have been a number, considering that he got arrested and everything.

She sips at her soda and tries not to dwell too much on this.

Watching people from her table outside is as entertaining as it will ever get; she wonders if this is what her last few weeks will look like.

She circles the edge of the glass with her index finger, waiting for her food to finally arrive. “I guess you are going to send me on a mission after this vacation, right?”

No reply.

Shaw lowers her voice. “You would tell me if they needed help with something, though?” She realizes that this is something that nags her at the back of her mind ever since she started to read the news and try to see between the lines of articles.

This waiting around couldn’t possibly feel any more depressingly boring. And she’s not even referring to her meal that has yet to arrive.

The Machine takes her sweet time to muster up some kind of reply.

“I AM WATCHING OVER THEM.”

“Good.”

 The waitress finally arrives and places her order in front of her on the table.

 

*

 

**day fourty-one**

 

Her real adventure in Mexico City starts on a rainy Saturday with a CURP code.

 **MEXA621111HVZNLL18** , is all the message on her Nokia phone tells her.

 

*

 

“Why do you want me to save a number? I spent weeks doing basically nothing.”

“THIS ISN’T JUST ABOUT THE NUMBER.”

“That’s not vague at all. Whatever.”

 

*

 

Not much later, Shaw is sitting in a stolen silver VW Vento, with the laptop open and resting on the passenger seat. It took her a while, but she has the CURP code decoded and now the face of some homicide detective is staring at her, along with some open files about his life and career. His name is Alonso Juan Mendez, he’s 52 years old and lost his partner in action ten days ago. Some kind of gang trouble during an investigation.

Shaw sighs. This could go both ways; either, this guy is the perp, planning on getting his revenge on who ever murdered his partner, or he is the victim who is asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. She scrolls through the rest of his file and her frown deepens. He is supposed to be on a leave for a few weeks to recover. He was shot in the shoulder and lost his partner only two weeks ago.

“Looks like I have to keep an eye on that one, huh?” She starts the engine, fiddles with the radio until she finds a decent radio station and slips out of the parking spot.

The drive to the address noted in his work file is a twenty minute drive away. Mexico City in the dark looks huge, mysterious and the traffic doesn’t get less annoying. Shaw is drumming on the steering wheel to some rock song, when the Nokia phone in the cup holder vibrates.

 **BE CAREFUL**.

Shaw doesn’t know what to do with this.

She puts the phone down and places it gently back in the cup holder.

 

*

 

Two hours later and nothing has happened so far. Alonso and his wife are watching a movie, his two daughters are already asleep.

Shaw walks around the building, goes inside and hopes to find any sign of suspicious action, but she can’t find anything like that. She grits her teeth and wonders if she can bluejack his phone by standing really close to the apartment door. She has to start somewhere. Seems like the next best thing to do.

She takes her smartphone out, unlocks the touchscreen and opens the app. The Machine installed it one day and to this day Shaw wonders how the hell the robot god managed to do that. It’s like this thing is literally everywhere.

“IT SHOULD WORK. PHONE WAS LEFT IN HIS JACKET, WHICH IS HANGING IN THE HALLWAY. DISTANCE FROM DOOR TO PHONE: 1,42 METERS.”

“Well then,” Shaw huffs, punches the button that starts the bluejacking and waits for the ping that announces a successful pairing with the phone. Then she walks away from the door, taking three steps at a time. She returns to the stolen car, and starts to check Mendez’ contacts. She’s lucky; Mendez is one of those cops who uses a dual sim card phone, and now she has access to both. She checks his private sim card first. No suspicious text message exchanges, everything seems normal. She tries the other sim card and it’s no surprise that the danger he’s in—no matter if he’s the one causing it or the one who is going to suffer because of it—is work related. There are several unknown numbers, but the one sticking out is a private number. The phone calls are regular and never longer than 30 seconds. No chance to track it.

Someone is messing with this man’s life and knows how to get away with it.

Shaw checks the text messages and finally, the emails, just to make sure she isn’t missing something.

To her surprise she finds emails that are not only in English, but also sent from some American company email address. The company is called MedicA Inc. and the whole exchange sounds awfully stiff and formal. Shaw skims through a few messages and finds it odd that a company would ask a detective to discontinue an ongoing homicide investigation that is connected to the theft of a truck filled with medication from said company.

It reeks of Samaritan.

“MEDICA IS AN ANAGRAM OF DECIMA.”

Shaw closes the app and puts the phone back into the inner pocket of her waterproof coat. Well, that answers a lot of questions. But it also opens up a completely different can of worms. Because the very existence of this company implies that Samaritan didn’t stop at creating numerous companies related to surveillance and technology. It also started to meddle with stuff like the health system. The most worrisome part here is that Samaritan isn’t staying within the border of the U.S.

It’s slowly seeping out into the real world.

And if Shaw were able to get terrified, now would be the moment.

Instead, she just slowly takes a deep breath, and tries to see a connection between Samaritan and a cop trying to solve a murder mystery connected to theft. Knowing Samaritan, this whole murder case might just be a scam; a way to get rid of annoying, meddling chess pieces.

And Mendez is going to end up as collateral damage if no one’s going to stop him.

She stares out through the windshield and wonders if the Machine decided to intervene here because this case is so strongly tied to Samaritan. This is more than just about the number and that’s what the Machine meant earlier.

Shaw thinks she understands.

She gets ready for a long stake out.

 

*

 

**day fourty-two**

 

Mendez receives a call around 3am on his work number.

“Hello?” His immediate use of English tells Shaw that this isn’t the first call of this kind.

“We need to talk. We have found some interesting files that might interest you, Detective. A driver is here to pick you up. Please, be so kind and do not decline this invitation.” The caller is male, has a flawless British accent and definitely is up to some sketchy crap.

It’s fucking Lambert.

There is a pregnant pause. “I’ll be there,” Mendez sighs and disconnects the call. The caller ID is hidden and right now Shaw wishes she had someone who would do the nerd job for her. She skips tracking the call, because in the end it’s more important to get the number out of harm’s way. Knowing which asshole called Mendez in the middle of the night isn’t going to solve her current problem.

Shaw re-loads her gun, takes her backpack with her and leaves the car. She is wearing leather gloves, because it has gotten awfully cold in that fucking car. And there is some constant drizzling going on ever since the sun went down.

The Machine is silent as the night, and Shaw slips into the building (she taped the lock so the main entrance door to the building doesn’t close properly anymore) and checks every dark corner.

“HE IS ON HIS WAY. CAR IS WAITING AROUND THE CORNER. USE BACKDOOR.”

Shaw wipes a strand of hair away and sneaks past the staircase, not flinching when the hallway light goes out again. She manages to find the backdoor, but never gets there. A gloved fist hits her cheek out of nowhere and she stumbles back against the wall, the hand immediately closes around her throat and squeezes. She tries to kick him, but the masked man (she can smell the cheap eau de cologne on him, and so can probably the entire population of this district) is trapping her entire body against the wall.

Until she manages to fish the steak knife she took from her small kitchen in her studio apartment out of her left coat pocket. She stabs it into his stomach, causing the man to whimper in pain, but his grip lessens only a little.

“HE IS A WELL TRAINED SAMARITAN AGENT,” the Machine chirps non-helpfully into her ear. “PROCEED WITH CAUTION.”

“No shit,” Shaw huffs breathlessly, already regretting to have wasted precious oxygen for this reply. Fuck this, it’s the Machine’s fault she didn’t inform her about this. She grits her teeth, her throat starting to burn and close up.

Seriously, she didn’t escape a Samaritan facility to die like this.

“THEY MUST HAVE REPLACED THE FOOTAGE IN THE CAMERAS.”

Shaw blinks when the light turns on and she can see the eyes of the agent and how they widen with recognition. And that’s when this asshole gets sloppy. She hears him gasp and start to contact whoever is on the other end of the com, and his hand gets almost limp around her neck.

She head butts him first, before she shoots at both of his kneecaps. By the time he collapses to the floor, he’s already unconscious. Then she rips the mask off—some stranger she’s never seen before—and takes the earpiece out, stomping on it until it’s crunched into tiny pieces.

She takes some deep breaths, before she registers the commotion at the door she just entered this building with.

Shit. Mendez.

The lights go out again and Shaw hurries after Mendez, ignoring some angry shouting from some rudely awoken neighbor a few floors above them. The Spanish curses follow her as a jumbled echo outside, where she only comes in time to see how Mendez is shoved with some black bag over his head in the back of some black Chevrolet SUV.

She fires some shot at the tires, but the car is already moving and she misses.

She runs towards her own stolen car, reloads the gun and slams the door closed. Sirens are blaring in the distance. She starts the engine and tries to follow the car as fast as possible. She’s not gonna let this detective die.

“ACCESS TO TRAFFIC LIGHTS BLOCKED.”

Shaw makes a risky turn and yet she doesn’t even come close to bumping any of the parking cars at the side of the road. She speeds up, seeing the SUV making a right turn in the distance.

“ACCESS TO SURVEILLANCE BLOCKED.”

“I get it, we’re in some deep trouble, now shut up!” Shaw hisses, making the same right turn before stopping the car.

The traffic light is red.

In front of her someone is sitting on a motorbike.

Shaw gets out of the car, leaves the car running and walks over to the driver of that bike. She touches his shoulder and the person jumps. “ _Hola_ ,” She starts, already low on patience. “ _Necesito tu moto_.”

“¿ _Estás loca_?” The man pushes his helmet visor up and stares at her, sounding as if he’s about to start laughing. Or yelling at her.

Shaw really, really has no time. She draws her gun, fires some shots at the wet asphalt without even looking and then aims with the Glock at this loser’s chest. “ _¿Es esto suficiente para responder tu pregunta?_ ”

The man lifts both hands and gets off his bike while Shaw is keeping it standing. He babbles some useless shit while he hands her his helmet over, but she isn’t listening anymore. She gets on the bike, puts the helmet on and makes a small salute. She drives off, ignoring the still red traffic light.

“ACCESS TO SURVEILLANCE RESTRICTED,” the Machine tells her and well. It’s better than nothing.

“You have to tell me where they went,” Shaw reminds her, earning some angry honking for her disregard of her red traffic light. “Where did the SUV go?”

“FOLLOW THE ROAD. MAKE A RIGHT TURN AT THE NEXT INTERSECTION.”

She should have adjusted the helmet a little better, Shaw thinks and yet she adds some more gas.

 

*

 

The Machine directed her to an address at the outskirts of Mexico City. The traffic noise and density of buildings are noticeably gone. There is almost nothing here, except for uneven, broken roads and this bounded real estate nightmare.

It’s an abandoned property ground of some company that fell into insolvency some time ago. And yet, the Machine keeps babbling into her earpiece numbers and names and how the company eventually disappeared, but Shaw barely listens.

She is standing next to the “lent” motorbike and watches the property with attentive eyes. For an abandoned former company, this place sure owns some shiny new floodlights, bathing almost the entire front of the building complex in white light.

“Abandoned my ass,” Shaw whispers grimly, checks her stash of spare ammo in her various coat pockets, before she starts marching towards the gate. It’s raining now and she pulls the hood of her waterproof jacket over her head, still trying to assess the situation.

If she’s lucky, they are going to interrogate this man, before thinking about killing him.

She rubs her right index finger against her thumb.

Interrogation is synonymous to torture in Samaritan’s vocabulary.

Shaw walks faster.

 

*

 

She takes a flashlight out of her backpack and holds it up with her drawn and loaded gun in both hands. It’s not turned on yet, though. She just wants to be prepared, just in case. There is no way she won’t have to enter one of these buildings in front of her at some point.

She’s climbed the gate after taking out the camera and she knows that she probably doesn’t have much time left. Someone’s bound to notice that one camera stopped working. She wonders if that guy who attacked her throat managed to breathe one word about her. He clearly recognized her.

Samaritan is still looking for her.

Doesn’t matter, she’s got to save this detective.

Where the hell is everyone?

She can’t even make out the black Chevrolet SUV or any other car for that matter. Then again, there is a huge hangar with several gates for trucks to dock there.

“They would need a ramp to get the car insider that hall, though,” Shaw mumbles to herself, looking around to make sure no one is following her or plotting some cheap sneak attack on her.

Shaw creeps closer to the small office building that is attached to the hall. Both buildings look as if they weren’t used for years now, and if it weren’t for the huge headlights sprinkled around the area, Shaw would believe that the Machine lost its ability to track people. There is no movement that she can see.

Mendoza has to be here.

She gets closer to the entrance of the office building and turns her slim flashlight on, only to find a small white sign underneath a very dusty door bell. The sign reads a faint “MedicA Inc.” in formerly bold letters. She double-checks her surroundings for cameras or patrolling guards. Better safe than sorry.

But there is nothing. Just the rain falling down on her and her own breathing, making it a little hard to listen for approaching Samaritan agents.

Everything is clear.

“MOVE. STAY CLOSE TO THE WALL ON THE LEFT SIDE. ENTER THROUGH THE BACKDOOR ON THE OTHER SIDE.”

“Got it,” Shaw huffs, making a beeline for the path the Machine has just suggested. She is grateful that whoever put the cameras on this abandoned property wasn’t very good at measuring angles because they forgot to cover that part of properly.

Shaw sneaks a glance into the dark insides of the hall through the dusty windows she passes, but can’t really see anything there. She reaches the door, and tries the door knob. Yeah, that would’ve been too easy.

“PICK THE LOCK.”

Shaw swallows her groan. “Thanks, Captain Obvious. I got this.” She puts the flashlight between her teeth and takes her pickset out of the backpack. The gun rests in her lap while she is at eye-level with the lock. The rain doesn’t make her work easier and it takes her a few minutes to get hear satisfying clicking of an opening lock. She smiles and puts the pickset back to its place in her backpack, before taking the gun and flashlight back into her hands.

Her steps are very slow when she walks in, listening for voices, breathing or approaching steps while aiming the Glock and flashlight ahead.

The hallway lies dark and empty front of her.

 “STAIRCASE. LAST DOOR ON THE RIGHT.”

Shaw walks towards the door she was instructed to go through, never stopping to double check every dark corner.

She pulls the heavy door open with one swift movement and slips inside, making sure that the door closes with as little noise as possible.

Faint, blue emergency lights are glowing in the otherwise unlit staircase, climbing their way up on the walls at regular intervals. Shaw still keeps her flashlight on, because if someone tries to pull a jump scare on her like in the apartment building of Mendez, she’s going to blind them. And then she’ll pull the trigger.

“UPSTAIRS, FIRST FLOOR. SECOND DOOR ON YOUR RIGHT. CAUTION.”

Shaw takes two steps at a time and keeps close to the wall, trying to see as much as possible in the dark. She listens for talking voices or even whispers. Anything that would hint at the presence of someone else.

She wonders how the Machine can see everything here.

Are there cameras? And if so, why doesn’t the Machine lose one word about them? Surely the one camera she took out wasn’t the only one around here, right? Maybe she simply guides Shaw using other sources.

She reaches the same kind of metal door that leads her to the first floor. She pushes it open and aims with her gun in both directions, half-expecting some Samaritan agents waiting for her.

“THE FIRST DOOR TO YOUR RIGHT.”

“Give me a second,” Shaw huffs, taking in the dusty, stuffy air in here. There is light coming from under the door, shouting reaches her ears and she hears a slap. She turns the flashlight off and stuffs it into her left coat pocket.

Without wasting any more time, she opens the next door and steps inside, never lowering her gun. The room, big enough to offer space for an entire office floor, is completely empty.

Well, except for one chair with a barely conscious homicide detective tied to it, and six Samaritan agents being present here. One of them is currently busy with “interrogating” Mendez. It smells like cigarette smoke in here and she knows what’s up.

They are giving him small burn marks.

Her scars itch.

She feels Martine’s smile on her skin.

That’s all she needs as an excuse to use the moment of surprise before the heavy door falls closed and betrays her presence. She keeps close to the wall and opens fire at them.

They all collapse and Shaw hurries to them to take their earpieces out and their phones away, before they can utter a word. Sadly, Lambert isn’t among them.

She checks the room for cameras and kills the only one she can find in here.

“I AM BLIND NOW,” the Machine notices.

Shaw doesn’t bother to comment on that. She walks over to Mendez and watches him, how he slowly lifts his head. His nose is bloody, he’s probably going to have a black eye, and that cut on his upper lip doesn’t look nice either. Not to mention the small burned circles on his hands and arms.

“I’m going to cut you lose,” she tells him, already reaching for the army knife, hidden in her left boot.

He just stares at her.

And she fulfills her promise and cuts through the ties that entrapped him on this stupid chair. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Who…wait, who are you? Are you one of…them?” He gives her a suspicious look. “You are American,” he offers as explanation for his more or less justified reaction.

Shaw rolls her eyes. “We don’t have time for this. I am here to get your ass out of this building. Get up.”

He takes a deep breath, sways a little when he gets to his feet but he straightens his back once he has made sure he isn’t going to lose his balance. He rubs his wrist where the cord cut into his skin and still watches her curiously. “You were in my house. I saw you, fighting that man,” he points out.

“Yeah,” Shaw sighs, stalking closer once more to the groaning men lying on the ground. She takes some of the ammo and decides to take two guns with her. She keeps the Heckler & Koch P30 for herself and tosses the Walther P99 to Mendez. “Figured, you could use a gun.”

“ _Gracias_. Where are we going?”

“Far away from here,” she tells him over the shoulder and starts going towards the door.

Mendez spares one last look at the men who brought him here and tortured him for the hell knows what, and follows her.

 

*

 

They find the SUV and a half asleep guard next to it not far away from the backdoor Shaw used to break into the office building. She smacks his sorry ass against the wall and hits him with the handle of her newly found gun, before he knows what’s coming at him.

“Who are you?” Mendez mutters not for the first time with wide eyes. “What’s your name?”

Shaw glances at her phone, completely disregarding Mendez. “Now what?” she asks a little out of breath.

“SAFEST PLACE: STUDIO APARTMENT.”

“Are you kidding me? There isn’t even enough space for one person. Also, we’d have to get through the entire city. Are you nuts?”

“BACKUP IS ON THEIR WAY. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. PERSON OF INTEREST MUST REMAIN UNDETECTED FOR A FEW HOURS.”

Mendez shakes his head. “Who are you talking to? What is this? I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.” He starts to wipe off the dried blood from under his nose.

“Fine,” Shaw grumbles, fishing the car keys out of the inner jacket pocket of that idiot who was supposed to guard this thing. She walks to the driver’s side and unlocks the car. “Get in,” she orders Mendez, who gives her a doubting look.

He attempts to say something, but Shaw’s attention is drawn back to the next tidbit of information the Machine is willing or able to offer her.

“GET RID OF GPS TRACKER UNDERNEATH THE CAR.”

Of course.

Without further questioning her current task, she gets on the ground, turns her small flashlight back on again and looks for something the Machine describes as a small, grey device with a small, blue control light. She finds it and stabs with her army knife into the center of that tiny box.

She dives back up to face a still pretty dumb folded homicide detective. “Just making sure they don’t find us,” she offers as an explanation.

“Who are they?”

Shaw gets into the car, starting the engine when Mendez finally sits down on the passenger’s seat. “This is crazy. You are crazy,” the man keeps mumbling to himself. “Who are they? Why don’t you answer my questions?”

Where is John when you need him?

 

*

 

“That’s where you live?”

She throws the keys into the bowl next to the door and takes off her wet coat. “No.”

“No? Then why are we here?”

“It’s the only place I can offer.” She opens the fridge, takes a Corona out and then glances at Mendez who looks like he could use one as well. He is busy with her Nokia phone, frantically typing a text message to his wife.

“She is going to stay with her sister,” he says in a relieved tone and takes the beer bottle from her, grunting a thanks in her direction.

Shaw just hums back.

Then they sit down on the couch, and Shaw turns the TV on. Some old movie is on, but she doesn’t pay too much attention. And neither does her guest.

“So,” Mendez starts, scratching his beard. “My partner wasn’t killed by some gang members, eh?”

“Oh, maybe he was,” Shaw says, taking another sip out of her bottle. “What exactly happened?” Talking about business is easier than comforting this guy or even asking him questions about his current state. He still looks like someone used him as a punching back, even after cleaning his face.

“It was…just a normal day. Some eye witness called and talked about some masked people stealing a truck. When we got there, the truck was open, the cargo was scattered around and Mauro—that’s my partner’s name—he told me to call backup. He got out of the car while I radioed the station, telling them what was going on. I heard shots. Someone called Mauro’s name, but…”

“So they knew him.”

“Not the first time we were in that neighborhood,” Mendez admits with a deep sigh. “I don’t know. I got to him and we tried to stop the shooters, but…”

Shaw contemplates if this is the Machine’s idea of making this about more than the number. So far, it seems like some case gone wrong. And then she frowns. “Wait. You are homicide. What are two detectives of that department doing in such a neighborhood? And why were you trying to stop a theft?”

Mendez gives her a long look. “You sound like a cop. Are you Secret Service? FBI?”

“You’d be in handcuffs and in some interrogation room if I was.”

He nods in agreement. “We were on our way back from a case. We’ve been the closest to the robbery, you know? So we got retasked.”

Shaw stares at her beer bottle. “How did he die? Your partner?”

“That’s the weirdest thing. The shooting was dying down when a bullet hit him in his head.” Mendez doesn’t continue for a moment and gazes at the TV screen instead. Then he sighs. “He was dead before I knew what happened.”

She places her half empty beer bottle on the couch table. “Do you have any surveillance on that?” she asks the Machine, because she is pretty sure that Mendez’ partner was taken out by some sniper.

“NO CAMERAS IN THAT AREA.”

“No, there are no cameras where it happened,” Mendez replies almost at the same time as the Machine.

How convenient.

“And even if, the ballistics said it was shot from a great distance with a rifle,” Mendez adds, toying with his wedding band.

“A sniper,” Shaw repeats her conclusion from a few moments ago.

Mendez gives her a sorrowful look. “ _Sí_. Two days later I received a call from that company, MedicA Inc. It was their truck that was stolen, and they asked me to help them solve that mystery. I said no, told them my boss sent me on a leave and that someone else got that case. The man on the phone, he wouldn’t listen.” He forms a fist with his free hand. “He said that it’s about more than just stolen medication. He wanted to meet me, but I said no. Again. It wasn’t my case, you see?”

Shaw barely nods. “And the emails?”

“How do you…?” He raises both eyebrows at her.

She doesn’t even pretend to be sorry. It saved his life. Kind of. “Answer the question.”

“Alright, alright. The emails came a little later. They wanted to share evidence with me. They talked about the loss for their company that this theft caused.”

“Alright. But why did you agree to meet them in the middle of the night?”

He looks suddenly very small. “I…started to ask questions. To make sure that they would find out who killed Mauro. But my colleagues didn’t know what to tell me. And so I started to dig around in Mauro’s stuff.”

Shaw sees the bad ending coming from a mile now.

“He…was doing research on that company. I don’t know since when. Everything he found out was written down into a notebook.”

“That’s why they kidnapped you,” she realizes.

Mendez nods. “Yes.” He sounds defeated. Or maybe he’s just tired. It’s past 4am after all.

“Where is the notebook now?” Shaw asks, after finishing her Corona.

“In a locker, at work. He had it in his hands while talking about it, but I just—”

“SAMARITAN AGENTS WILL FIND IT SOONER OR LATER.”

“We better pick it up then,” Shaw says, not sure to whom exactly.

Maybe to both.

 

*

 

They don’t run into any kind of trouble. No one asks her who she is and why she’s here with a detective who is supposed to take a break from his work. He opens his locker, retrieves the notebook that is filled with snippets of printed out information, notes and personal observations written down in a small writing.

Mauro Arroyo was keeping tabs on that American company for far longer than was healthy for him. He’s dead now. Shaw skims through the pages and looks at Mendez. “Any chance his work account here is still active?”

“We could try to use it. I don’t know his password, though,” he replies, scratching his beard again.

“Let me handle this,” Shaw tells him, sits down on Mendez’ office chair and turns his PC on. Then she types in Mauro’s full name and looks at the blinking cursor in the space for the password.

“Come on,” she mutters under her breath, glancing at the camera at the far end of the barely lit room. They are almost alone here, just another detective is sitting a few desks away, being engrossed in some loud phone call. His wife or girlfriend, probably, because he’s working in late again and is repeating excuses over and over again.

The cursor blinks some more, before the password is being typed in and the account is unlocked.

“¿ _Cómo se hace esto_?“ breaths Mendez, taking a spare chair to sit down next to her.

“It’s a party trick,” Shaw gives back, distracted by the files and pages the Machine opens. She takes a USB stick out and puts it into the assigned slot. Then she copies the files that are open on the display on that drive and waits for the procedure to finish.

Mendez is trying to make sense of the scanned documents and opened forms on the screen. “What is all this?”

“Something that got your friend killed.”

“And the theft?”

“People do crazier things for less than pretending to steal a truck,” she says after a brief moment of considering her next words. “That company is trying to mess with the police force. But why?”

“I don’t know,” Mendez replies, as if this question was directed at him.

She doesn’t correct him and just waits for the Machine to reply.

It takes the robot god forever. “HOW DO YOU FIND FLAWS IN A SYSTEM?”

“You check for weak spots…oh, I see,” Shaw says, closing and deleting all files from the PC.

“That makes no sense. Are you talking to me?”

She shuts the computer down and puts the USB stick into the inside pocket of her coat. “Let’s go, before we get company.”

He follows her, even if a little reluctant. “How do you know all these things?”

“I just do.”

“You never said your name. I don’t even know who you are and you are not sharing everything you know with me.”

Detectives, Shaw thinks bitterly and is glad to be outside in the cold morning air. It finally stopped to rain. She turns around and gives him a hard look. “Too much information is what got your partner killed. And you almost followed him,” she reminds him, content with how he flinches and touches the cut on his upper lip. “Besides, you are not the only one on the run,” Shaw confesses, folding up the collar of her coat. “Come on.”

“These…people are after you as well?”

“Maybe.”

“You just said—”

“Listen, buddy,” Shaw interrupts him, stopping his next step with her flat hand on his chest. “I am going to help you, but that’s it. Worry about your life, not mine.”

Mendez makes a humming noise.

“Good.”

“BLACK CAR, FOUR O’CLOCK.”

Shaw sighs. “Time to move,” she whispers, grabs Mendez’ arm and reaches for her gun with the other hand.

Saving numbers completely on her own sucks.

 

*

 

They got rid of the car following her around after ten minutes. The metro system of Mexico City saved them, quite literally.

They find a nice little place that is open already and serves breakfast. Shaw picks a table close to the exit, her eyes scanning the streets outside the diner.

Mendez flips pages of the notebook when the waitress brings them the coffee and breakfast dish they ordered. “This is crazy,” he summarizes his latest discovery and closes the notebook. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“People are stupid,” Shaw replies out of reflex and thinks better of it when she sees Mendez’ crestfallen look. “He probably wanted to keep you out of trouble.”

Mendez starts to eat. “What are we going to do now?”

Shaw leans back, licking her fingers. “Nothing,” Shaw decides, eying her roast beef sandwich. “I am going to make sure they won’t follow you. This book has to be destroyed.”

“This is crucial evidence!” Mendez hisses, pointing an accusing finger at her. “How is this case supposed to be solved if we destroy the key to it? That’s sabotage!”

She snips it out of her way. “It’s your death sentence. Keep it, and they will follow you forever. More people will come after you. You won’t be able to hide forever, you know. So, leave it with me and you can go to your family and lead a normal life far away from this corrupt place,” Shaw tells him with a lowered voice. “Someone had to tell these guys you’d be around that area that day, don’t you think?”

He makes a thoughtful face. “Oh.”

“You told anyone else about this?”

Mendez shakes his head. “No. But I can’t just walk away. That’s not right. My partner died for this.”

“Are you deaf? I just told you that you are going to die if you don’t let this one slide. You can’t win against them. They probably have their people inside everywhere. The police, the justice system, government—you name it.”

“Alright, how about you answer me some questions, then. Starting with your name,” he demands, his deep voice getting with every word lower, angrier.

She holds his gaze. “Sameen,” she tells him, too careful not to tell him her last name. Samaritan is already in this city, it’s stupid luck, really, that Greer’s bloodhound Martine, or Lambert aren’t looking for her here already. They still don’t know about her being here and she doesn’t plan on changing that fact any time soon.

Mendez relaxes a little. “Alright, Sameen,” he says with a kinder tone. “What do you know about this company?”

“It’s not a real company,” she says slowly.

“DON’T TELL HIM TOO MUCH.”

She clears her throat, meeting Mendez gaze again. All this talking makes her scrambled eggs go cold. “They just pose as a company. They are resourceful, well-connected and dangerous. They get rid of people who are in their way.” She thinks about Lambert when she says this. “That’s why we have to get you out of here. That’s why I told you to tell your wife and kids to leave.”

He takes a sip of his black coffee. “Sounds like being a coward,” he remarks in a bitter tone.

Shaw understands. That was her six weeks ago.

“Sometimes hiding can save your life,” she mumbles, not sure what to do with her change of heart. She just knows that it’s the truth. She is still alive because of this weird-ass vacation. “Where exactly did your family go?”

“My sister-in-law lives in Guadalajara. That’s almost six hours away. They are probably still on their way.”

Shaw takes the Nokia phone out. He used it to contact his wife. She stares at the empty display. “Call her,” she decides. “It’s safe, it’s harder to track this kind of phone. You have 30 seconds, got that?”

“I am a detective, Sameen. I know how this whole thing works.”

She shrugs and resumes eating her lukewarm eggs with bacon. She watches him leave the table and dial the number he knows by heart, starting to talk in rapid Spanish when his wife picks up. And then his entire posture tenses and he gives her a horrified look.

And she just _knows_.

His wife and kids never left Mexico City.

She looks at her unfinished breakfast. “Every damn time,” she mutters, grabs her coat and follows Mendez outside, after throwing some money on the table.

The waitress doesn’t even deserve half the tip, but fuck it.

 

*

 

“I should’ve called sooner,” Mendez says not for the first time, beating himself up for Samaritan’s way of operating.

She guides him back to her apartment, to get a few things. More ammo, for example. “Listen, calling sooner wouldn’t have changed a thing. Just be glad that they are alive,” she tries to remind him—not for the first time and judging by his unconvinced look, also not for the last time. She sighs.

“They want the notebook.”

“Of course. They also plan to kill all of you. It’s the oldest trick in the world.”

“Shouldn’t I…call for backup?” he tries, following her up the stairs to her studio apartment. He sounds worried sick.

She doesn’t falter in her steps, just throws him a dark look over the shoulder. “Can you trust anyone in your division?”

He falls quiet.

She doesn’t say anything else. With the flick of her hand she opens the door to her apartment and goes straight for the wardrobe, opening the drawer with the spare ammo, ski mask, knives and pepper spray. She grabs everything and glances at Mendez, who is staring out of the window.

“We’ll get them out of there. Or, you will,” she clarifies, loading both guns with 15 rounds. The rest of her spare ammo, the two knives and pepper spray, goes into her coat pockets. She hands Mendez some ammo as well and by the looks of it he is still busy figuring out what she means.

“How?”

“I’ll distract them.”

He blinks. “That sounds…dangerous. This isn’t smart.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you,” she points out, closing the wardrobe again and checking both phones.

“YOU ARE NOT COMING BACK. PACK YOUR BAGS,” the Machine advices and well, it’s not like they are in a hurry or something. She sighs, opens her backpack and throws some things in. Money, chargers for phones and her laptop, her faked papers, debit cards and a water bottle. Then she adds some underwear and clean tank tops.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Let’s go,” she ushers him out, not looking back.

She hopes the Machine will send someone to clean this apartment up.

 

*

 

Mendez receives an address shortly after his call to his wife’s phone number. Shaw hot wires some car and makes it more or less through the dense traffic without losing her mind. Mendez is silent throughout the whole car ride and his gaze never strays away from the window of the passenger’s seat.

She doesn’t engage him into any talk and keeps the radio turned off.

The address leads them to some parking lot of an old building that has broken windows and is covered in some colorful graffiti. At least two cameras. She parks the car across the street and looks at her partner next to her. He is holding the notebook and the loaded Walther P99.

Shaw turns the engine off and takes the seatbelt off.

“He said no company,” Mendez reminds her and looks at Mauro’s notebook. “When he sees you—”

“He won’t. First, I have to make sure he’s the one who is responsible for that mess.”

“And then what? You ask him to stop?”

Shaw smiles at him, pulls the ski mask out of her backpack and tilts her head a little. “I’ll take him out. All of them.”

Mendez looks a little pale, now that she thinks about it. “What?” he croaks, looking alarmed and uncomfortable. “That’s the plan? A killing spree?”

“Trust me, this is going to work,” she promises him, toying with the ski mask. She’s going to put it on right before she needs it. She doesn’t want people to look at her funny. It’s almost 9am and the streets are starting to fill with pedestrians who are running errands, doing groceries or walking their dogs.

Mendez makes a disapproving noise, but doesn’t question her further, though, which rubs her the wrong way. Ever since that phone call this guy is rendered useless. Alright, so his family is in “IMMINENT DANGER” as the Machine has put it a few minutes ago, but this isn’t going to help anyone; not them, not his family.

Shaw grabs his arm. “Hey. Focus. I don’t need this worried guy, I need the focused cop. You remember what the plan is?”

He just nods.

“Good. Let’s give them hell.” She gets out of the car and feels like she’s going to melt. The coat has to go. She empties the pockets and puts the things into her denim back pockets and, closes the door after she’s thrown her coat inside. Then she awaits instructions.

“THE HOSTAGES SEEM TO BE UNDERGROUND. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.”

“Yeah. What else?”

“FOUR AGENTS COVERING THE ENTRANCE OF THE PARKING LOT. FIVE OTHER AGENTS GUARDING THE ENTRANCE TO THE UNDERGROUND. ONE SNIPER ON THE ROOFTOP. THREE CAMERAS TOTAL.”

She looks at Mendez. “Go. And remember: I’ve got this.”

He makes a face as if in pain. “You keep talking to yourself and you seem to be crazy. I am stupid for listening to you.”

“Yeah, yeah. We can talk about all this later. Just go. Slowly.” She grits her teeth and rolls her eyes as she watches him go. Geez, how did this guy become a detective in the first place?

“TAKE THE SNIPER OUT. USE HIS SNIPER RIFLE TO TAKE THE OTHER GUARDS OUT. YOU HAVE 67 SECONDS.”

She runs across the street, puts the mask on and climbs over the fence using a dumpster. Once over the fence she finds a fire escape and climbs it up, groaning as she does. It’s a three story tall building that looks like it will collapse any minute now. 

The Machine keeps steadily counting down.

“40.”

She sees the sniper and gets into a more ducked posture, sneaking up on him as best as she can on the uneven rooftop.

“36.”

She wills her body to comply with each smooth movement. She hovers over him and right when he’s about to turn his head to notice her presence, she snaps his neck. He doesn’t even make a noise, just the loud crack of his vertebrae giving up on life.

“28.”

She rolls him to the side, takes his earpiece out and positions herself flat on her stomach behind the sniper rifle. It’s an Accuracy International AX338, loaded with ten shots and a suppressor. Nine guards to take out. Nice.

“21.”

She looks through the telescopic sight, feeling the weight of that weapon in her hands. The bipod keeps it steady.

“18.”

“Tell me where they are.”

“10 O’CLOCK.” She pulls the trigger. “11 O’CLOCK.” Shot. There’s movement, yelling and some running going on. “3 O’CLOCK.” Click. Gun shots pierce through the air, but they can’t reach her. “12 O’CLOCK.” Headshot. Is this what the famous God Mode feels like? She digs it a lot. No wonder Root becomes Eeyore when the Machine isn’t talking to her. “1 O’CLOCK.” Another one down. She could get addicted to this. “4 O’CLOCK.” She shoots again. This is fun.

More shots and the pained scream of someone follow. She sees Mendez through the telescopic sign, taking out the other guards.

She gets up and makes her way down, only a little out of breath when she rounds the corner of the building. She reaches Mendez who stands there a little lost. “You okay?” he asks her and she just gives him a thumbs up. He can’t see her smile through the mask after all.

Shaw moves forward, taking the cameras out. She stops at the metal door on the floor, raising her eyebrow at Mendez under the mask. “We have to go down there.”

“ALL AGENTS ARE ON ALERT. PROBABILITY OF HOSTAGES DYING: 34.35%.”

With a huff she flips the door open, revealing an instable looking narrow staircase. She fishes the small flashlight out of her jeans front pocket and walks ahead, not sure what to expect. It doesn’t look good for Mendez’ family, but the key to success is to remain calm.

And if there is one thing she’s good at, it’s handling delicate situations like this. She tries to make as little sound as possible, breathing through her open mouth to have a better control over the sounds of her intakes and exhales of breath.

Mendez follows her and the light through the dark hallway. Yellow emergency lights that are lined up on the right side of the corridor light their path as well. She decides to put her flashlight away again.

Then they hear steps.

“Hey!”

Shaw kills the man before Mendez can react, the partner of that idiot follows a second later. She isn’t used to aim at center mass, but the Machine isn’t stopping her. One of them is still trying to catch his breath on the floor while bleeding out, when they walk past him.

This is odd. Isn’t the Machine supposed to value every life? It’s nothing she will lose sleep over, though. Whatever.

Another agent appears in front of them and the distance is almost non-existent. Shaw ducks, places a good punch into the groin of that agent and disarms him, before shooting him in the chest. The shot rings in her ears and she lets the body drop.

“THREE ASSETS LEFT, INCLUDING JEREMY LAMBERT.”

Excellent.

“There are three more men left. Let me handle them.”

“How do you know this?” Mendez wonders in a whispering tone, standing closely behind her, leaning against the wall.

“I just do. Hand me the notebook.”

He does so, without asking her why. She hands him a knife. “To cut them loose,” she whispers in case he’s confused. She doesn’t know, since she can’t see his face in their current position.

Shaw peeks around the corner. There are filled black plastic bags and towers of boxes. The labels on the boxes are in Mandarin. Weird.

This seems to be like some storage basement.

Two guards are walking around, impatient and restless. They remind her of starved tigers in a cage. She reloads the HK P30 and steps into the white light of the ceiling lamps, ducking when the first shots are fired.

And by the sound of it, there are being three guns fired. Lambert is somewhere in here as well.

She takes both agents out, but no Lambert in sight. He stopped shooting at her, too. Fuck.

“Elena!” cries Mendez, running towards his wife and two daughters, all three of them tied to a chair with a piece of duct tape covering their mouths. He says something in Spanish, too fast to understand a thing.

Shaw looks around, her gun aiming ahead. Where the fuck is Lambert?

“SOMEONE TOOK THE CAMERAS OUT. I AM BLIND. SORRY.”

Oh. So he went backstage.

“Great,” she groans under her breath, frantically searching the room and turning around to see what the detective and his family are up to. If Lambert vanished, so be it.

Mendez stops talking.

She finds Lambert, standing right there next to Mendez, holding a gun to the detective’s temple. “Hello,” he says with a wide smile, dressed in a tailored black suit and narrow, red tie. “I believe we both hold something we’d like to get back. How about an exchange?”

She’s going to wipe the floor with his fucking smile. “Right. So cut them loose and let them go. And you get your the notebook back.”

“As tempting as that sounds, I cannot agree to this. You must see that it is a little unfair to exchange a small notebook for four lives.” Lambert’s grin widens. “I knew you were alive, Shaw. You have too much bite in you to simply die.”

Her voice. He (or Samaritan, who cares) recognized her voice. Shit.

She takes the mask off, never stopping to aim with the barrel at Lambert’s head. “It’s been a while,” she admits, not particularly fond about seeing him.

“Looks like our mutual friend Martine owes me ten bucks.” His stubble looks silly when his lips move.

“I’ll tell her that when I see her. Right before I kill her, just like I am going to kill you.”

Lambert seems unfazed. “You do know that I am holding a loaded gun against this man’s head?”

“HE HAS NO SHOTS LEFT. THERE WAS NO TIME LEFT TO RELOAD THE GUN BETWEEN SHUTTING THE CAMERAS OFF AND TAKING ALONSO MENDEZ HOSTAGE.”

Shaw would call bullshit on that, if she didn’t know that the Machine can access microphones of cameras and phones as well. It is blind, but not deaf.

She shrugs. “I barely know this guy, to be honest,” she says, lowering her gun just a little. She is aiming at his chest now. “And I never met these people,” she adds, nodding at the rest of the Mendez family. They all look at her as if she lost her mind.

Mendez shoots her a disbelieving look. And starts to curse her existence in Spanish.

“GET A LITTLE CLOSER. LAMBERT IS WEARING A MODIFIED WATCH CONNECTED TO HIS PHONE. I HACKED IT AND HAVE NOW ACCESS TO THE SENSOR AND CAMERA OF IT. LAMBERT’S HEART RATE: 124BPM.”

Shaw chuckles. Oh boy.

Lambert has stopped smiling and looks at her wearily, his jaw is tense and she is now sure that the Machine is right.

He has no bullets left. Idiot fired all he got at her.

What a fucking loser.

She takes a step forward. “Nice watch, Lambert. Did Greer bought it for your birthday?”

Lambert barely moves. “Oh,” he makes, looking distracted. Is Samaritan talking to him or did he just realize what a moron he is?

His jaw is moving. He has the smile back on his face, but it’s less confident. “I must say, I underestimated you. We all did. Withstanding torture and not answering one of our questions? That takes a strong mind. But you can’t stop us. This city? It’s just one of many.”

Shaw takes another step, this time to the left and the angle is finally right. She is subtle about it, but she lowers her gun a little more.

Mendez makes a worried face.

He should know by now that her aim is pretty good.

Lambert knows it.

The shot make Mendez’ wife and children wince, one of them lets out a muffled cry. Mendez doesn’t look down, he runs to his family, picking the knife up he dropped, probably when Lambert snuck up on him.

She walks up to Lambert who is lying on his back, blood leaking from his bullet wound through his stomach. He is breathing hard and yet he is smiling. “Nice shot, Shaw. No wonder Miss Groves is so…enamored with you.”

She can feel Mendez’ gaze on her.

“Shut up. You don’t have much time left. And you are seconds away from the most painful thing you have ever felt. Soon the stomach acids and bile will poison your system and you will be in so much pain, you won’t even remember your name. So. What the fuck are you guys doing here?”

“Vacation,” breaths Lambert, already looking like he’s in immense pain. “Just…like you, it seems.”

She gets to her knees next to him, trying to avoid the growing pool of blood. “Why creating an alias company with faked meds?”

“Oh, the meds are real,” Lambert coughs out, groaning in pain. “Neurology is such a…vast field to…explore,” he struggles to continue, barely able to form the words.

Shaw gets up as if burned. “That’s what your robot god is planning?”

“Not…planning. Doing...we’re just a few signatures away to get it FDA approved.”

“FDA approved meds that you are hiding in Mexico? Yeah, sure. Come on, what are you hiding?”

Lambert whimpers. “That’s a secret…for you to uncover. I am…sure you’ll manage.” He groans louder. “It was…fun seeing you…again, Sameen.”

She turns away from him. Mendez and his family are already walking towards the hallway.

She is about to follow them when she suddenly stops. Lambert makes another pained noise. “What the hell,” she mutters and goes her steps back.

Lambert blinks at her.

And smiles when she lifts her gun.

 

*

 

No one says a word on their drive to the family’s address. Shaw is driving, Lambert’s last words still swirling around in her mind.

Samaritan is truly invading everything. It’s not just powerful within politics and economy; it has its sticky, grabby fingers literally everywhere. Even country borders don’t seem to be a problem.

And this is terrifying.

She stops in front of the building and looks at Mendez, who tells his wife and children on the backseat to get inside. He waits for them to leave before he looks at Shaw. “Thank you. For everything.”

“TELL HIM THAT THERE IS AN ENVELOPE IN HIS MAIL BOX WITH NEW IDENTITIES FOR HIM AND HIS FAMILY.”

“You should check your mail box and start a new life,” Shaw tells him, not sure why he is still in this car.

He looks through the windshield. “Mauro…he knew something bad was going on. He mentioned something about weird side effects of meds his younger brother was prescribed not long ago. For his insomnia. That’s when he started to do his research on that company, I think,” Mendez says, smiling a little when he remembers his partner and friend. “He was so determined. I wish I listened better to him. He stopped talking about it eventually.”

“He probably would’ve stopped altogether if he knew it would get him killed through a set up that was most likely prepared to get rid of both of you,” Shaw gives back. “They couldn’t be sure how much he told you.”

“It doesn’t make sense. Why not just hunt him down? Why…infiltrate our police department and set this trap up?”

Shaw has asked herself the same damn thing over the past few hours, over and over again. It makes no sense. So much effort for two detectives who might have stumbled upon confidential illegal business? One call to an expert assassin and these two would’ve been dead. Hell, Lambert could’ve taken care of that with his minions.

She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Mendez nods. “Doesn’t matter. I just hope we can all…find some peace after all this.”

“I am sure your family is waiting.”

“And what about you? Will you go to…your own...family or whoever is waiting for you?”

Thanks, Lambert.

“Maybe,” Shaw shrugs, not really sure where she will go now. “Am I going…home?” she asks the Machine.

“NO. BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE, EITHER. SAMARITAN KNOWS YOU ARE ALIVE. TIME TO LEAVE THE CONTINENT.”

She looks at Mendez. “Looks like I have a job to finish first,” she half-lies and hopes he won’t ask about who she obviously is talking to all the time.

The thought of asking her surely crosses his mind, considering his pensive gaze. But instead, the detective stretches his hand out, dropping the topic entirely. “Thanks for saving our lives. I won’t ever forget that.”

She briefly shakes his hand. “Yeah, sure.”

“I am still convinced you are crazy, Sameen.” He opens the door and gets out. The notebook stays behind on his seat.

“Goodbye, Alonso,” she sighs, waiting for him to close the door. He crosses the street and vanishes inside the apartment complex without once looking back.

Shaw starts the engine, looking at the notebook that started so much trouble. “So. Where exactly are we going?”

“AIRPORT. NEXT FLIGHT TO LONDON, GREAT BRITAIN.”


	3. moving through the shadows ‘til i reach victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. i feel bad for taking so much time to finish this chapter, but things happened and made it impossible to get this sooner to you. i am, however, still alive and very committed to finish this story. and by the looks of it this story might even get finished before cbs decides to air the 5th season. ha-ha-ha. ugh. 
> 
> anyway, i hope this almost 10k long chapter was worth the wait.

A warm hand touches her arm and shakes her lightly.

Shaw wakes up with a bitter taste in her mouth and ready to kill that asshole that decided to interrupt her much needed nap. Her hand snaps automatically to his that is still shaking her arm. And then she remembers. She’s currently stuck at the Frankfurt airport, because her flight has been delayed. Some storm or something, she hasn’t really paid attention when the Machine started to explain temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and amount of rain water coming down the next few hours.

Her grip loosens until she lets go of him completely. And then she glares at the stranger until he finally lets go of her arm. He’s in his mid-twenties, probably, with nerdy glasses and a stubble. He looks at her apologetically. “ _Entschuldige, aber dein Handy klingelt fast non-stop. Scheint wichtig zu sein, deswegen dachte ich_ —”

She just now notices the classic Nokia tune raging in her coat pocket. She ignores the German dude still rambling apologies next to her and takes the call. “You ready to tell me what I am needed for in London?” she asks with a lowered voice, turning away from her seat neighbour who avoids looking in her direction at all cost now. Pussy.

“THE BEST WAY TO FIND OUT IF YOU CAN TRUST SOMEBODY IS TO TRUST THEM. ERNEST HEMINGWAY.”

Her thumb ends the call and she puts the phone away. This vague asshole of an AI. She can’t believe she just got a stupid quote about trust. She leans back, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths.

It’s 2:28 pm.

She yawns.

She fucking hates having a jet lag.

 

*

 

It’s 7:28 am when John Riley arrives at work with a coffee to go in his gloved hand. He smiles politely at Captain Moreno, who nods at him through the window to her office while she’s engaged in some phone call.

Finch hasn’t called him yet to inform him about a new number, which is a good sign. Maybe today won’t be so busy. He takes his coat, gloves and scarf off and takes a seat at his table, frowning at the pile of unfinished paperwork. He sighs. This is really the worst part of his job. He picks the first folder from the top of the pile and opens it when Fusco arrives and walks over to his table opposite from his.

“Morning, partner.”

Reese looks at him. “You look tired, Lionel.”

“My neighbors bought a puppy. That little thing whines most of the night,” he grunts, rubbing his eyes and sitting down at his desk. “Why are you here so early? Usually Glasses has some special task for you, right?”

“Today is my lucky day,” Reese shrugs, his voice dripping with tired sarcasm. There is always something to do in the end. And it’s not unusual that it takes Finch sometimes longer to give him the next number, seeing as he has to maintain his own cover. Professor Whistler is a busy man who has to go to work, just like he has to.

Fusco shrugs and puts his glasses on before turning his PC on. “This like a day off for you, then.”

“Something like that.”

“Not so fast,” a female voice chirps from the entrance.

He hasn’t seen her for quite some time. It’s been weeks after they hunted down the trail to this small town where they suspected Shaw to be. After this he hasn’t really had any contact with her. He knows, though, that Finch talked to her a few times. Brief run-ins at the subway station.

It is not his place to probe and ask where Root is and how she’s coping with Shaw’s absence.

Judging by her tired eyes, not so good.

Fusco groans and puts his glasses down. “The hell you doing here?” He even looks around as if he could find the officer guilty of letting Root slip in.

She flashes her brightest smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “John and I are going to have a field trip,” Root smiles at him, while sauntering closer to Reese’s table. She wears a black coat, no hat or gloves. Instead, she holds a green apple in her hand and she sits down on the edge of Reese’s table to take a bite.

He gives her a worried look and then stares at the security camera closest to him.

She gives him a secretive smile. “Relax. I took them out.” She glances at her watch. “We have two minutes and forty-eight seconds,” she informs him, almost proud of her doing. “It’s the reason why Captain Moreno is now on the phone with the company taking care of the security here.”

Fusco grunts in discomfort. “I don’t even want to know,” he tells them.

“You can always leave, Lionel,” Reese says with a lowered voice when another officer passes in between the tables and doesn’t even bat an eye at Root being here.

Fusco just glares back at him.

He turns back around to Root. “A field trip?” he wonders, not entirely sure what he feels. He is relieved that she’s alright, even though that is not the right word. Ever since he tried to save Caroline Turing’s life that ended in Finch’s abduction he hadn’t liked this woman much. But Finch’s started to trust her more and more, she’s proven herself countless times and Shaw—

He clears his throat. “Where to?”

“China is supposed to be lovely at this time of the year,” she notes with a conspiratorial tone, too low for Fusco to understand. He currently tries to give his best impression of a disinterested man.

Reese lifts his brows a little. “It’s still winter,” he mumbles back.

She swallows the bite and leans forward, lowering her voice even more, much to Fusco’s discontent. “Meet me at Shannon’s work place. Bring flowers and this,” she tells him, handing him a white closed envelope. “Let’s say—”, she looks to the clock at the wall behind her to check the time, “—in two hours?”

“I—”

“Since when are you running errands for Harold?” Fusco chimes in, confused and irritated as ever whenever Root is around. “You havin’ trouble with a number? Wonder Boy and I could help,” he offers before he meets Root’s warning look.

She shakes her head.

Then she notices the pile of paperwork on Reese’s table and frowns. “Looks like you are quite busy,” she mumbles, fishing her phone out of the coat.

Reese eyes her curiously. “I can always hand them over to my capable partner.” He can’t wait to escape the bureaucratic hell this job comes with.

“Hey!”

“Lionel’s gotten quite good at faking my signature with me being so tied up sometimes in saving a number’s life.”

“I can hear you!”

Root tilts her head and shakes her head. “That’s not necessary,” she says and looks to Captain Moreno’s office. His boss isn’t on the phone anymore, but she looks pretty exhausted. “I’ll take care of that.”

He meets her amused gaze. “Does it involve murder?”

“Someone should lock Cocoa Puff up,” Fusco huffs, typing with both index fingers his passcode into the keyboard.

Root ignores him. “It is possible that the FBI will need John Riley in some very important investigation. I should be able to make something up within two hours, with paperwork and all. Pretend to know agent Augusta King when asked,” she advises.

Fusco huffs. “You guys and your secrets.”

Reese almost smiles. “Sure,” he agrees with ease.

Root jumps off the table and throws the half eaten apple with a perfect throw into the paper basket that is next to Fusco’s table. He flinches a little. “See you later, John,” she says with a failed wink. “Lionel.” She leaves with no haste in her walk.

They both look at each other once she’s gone.

“How did she even get in here?” Fusco fumes once she’s out of sight.

Reese just shrugs.

Then he takes his pen in his hand and starts working on the paperwork in front of him.

 

*

 

An hour later, when he’s gotten through half of the pile, Captain Moreno informs him that he has to go and assist Agent King with some very complicated series of homicides and that the agent requested his support.

He briefly wonders if Harold knows about Root’s field trip while he gets into his coat and ignores one of Fusco’s dark looks he keeps throwing in his direction.

He spares the remaining paperwork no second glance when he leaves his workplace.

 

*

 

Her plane lands with a slight delay at Terminal 2 of the Heathrow airport. It’s dark outside, almost 9 pm. With her backpack shouldered and her bag in her left hand she walks out of the luggage area and takes her Nokia phone out. One new message.

**HILTON LONDON HEATHROW AIRPORT, TERMINAL 4, HOUNSLOW, TW6 3AF, UNITED KINGDOM. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.**

Shaw for once doesn’t complain about that idea. Checking in at the closest hotel is a good plan. She will take a long hot shower, clean the gun she snuck through the security check with the Machine doing some illegal hacking mojo to make this happen, and sleep for some hours. The nap she took at Fraport didn’t really fix her jet lag problem.

Her feet carry her to the closest information point, where a couple is asking for directions. She places her bag between her feet and pretends not to keep an eye on the people around her. She feels watched. Not watched by cameras, because that is a given now. Someone is following her, she can feel the prickling in her neck and the rush of adrenalin through her body. After years of training and being in the field, she knows how to tell if someone is tailing her every step or not. She prefers if she’s the one who does the tracking, not the other way around. She cranes her neck a little, her fingers take randomly some pamphlet out and she starts to scan the crowd while pretending to read that thing in her hands.

She spots a man wearing a black trench coat, a black hat and looking suspiciously at his watch. He knows she’s spotted him.

She could stay here and try to find his friends, because why would Samaritan send just one agent after her? It can’t be that stupid, she’s way too good to be chased by just one dumbass. She thinks about her gun that is on the bottom of her bag.

There is still the hidden knife in her inner coat pocket.

Shaw sighs. She has to lure them out into the open anyway. So why not doing it while going to her shuttle bus?

She lets the pamphlet discreetly soar to the ground and takes her smartphone out of her backpack, while turning her earpiece on.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, faking a cough so that the clueless couple won’t give her funny looks. She lifts her bag and starts walking, following the signs that lead her to the shuttle bus station that she needs.

Soon enough she spots in the reflection of a shop window two other similarly dressed dudes following the one she saw first. Her heart beat doesn’t falter, her hands don’t start to sweat, because _of course_ Samaritan would try to retrieve what it has lost under its care. She isn’t surprised. She keeps her steps even and feigns to be oblivious.

Whatever the encounter with these Samaritan agents will bring, she is sure as hell not going back to Greer and his shit eating grin or Martine’s cold scalpel. They die or she will, there is no inbetween.  
She feels like a small smile is pulling at her lips.

The doors slide to the side and she is outside, breathing in the cold, rainy night. She doesn’t stop, but she knows that they are still there. They aren’t really trying to hide their presence so they probably just want to wait and see what will happen. Or they await instructions of Samaritan. Either way, she won’t take any risks. Her free hand has already pulled the knife out and she’s hiding it in her left coat pocket.

There is a shuttle bus waiting and Shaw kinda hopes the Machine would do its magic and tell her where her enemies are. God mode, she thinks and kinda likes the sound of it now that she had the chance to taste its power.

But no such thing happens. And when she turns around, fully expecting to be face-to-face with her stalkers she is surprised to find that they are gone. Just as she is about to turn back and start walking towards the waiting bus, she feels how a needle is stabbed into her external jugular vein.

The Machine in her ear starts a countdown and Shaw is ready to tear the world apart.

And then it gets dark.

 

*

 

Reese hands the cab driver some bills and leaves the car with a small bouquet of flowers in his hand. The white envelope Root handed him at the station is safely hidden in his inner coat pocket.

He looks up, eying the tall building Root’s semi-permanent cover identity works in. Then he starts walking towards the entrance. He is welcomed by a young blonde receptionist who smiles at the flowers in his gloved hand.

“Hello. I am looking for Shannon Claude. There has to be a visitor’s pass for the name John Riley,” he tells the young woman with the nametag “Miss Johnson” and smiles awkwardly at her.

Miss Johnson nods and starts typing something into the keyboard. There are two more people working at the reception, a young man in his twenties and a brunette girl that looks like she just finished high school. They all look very young.

Or maybe he is just getting old.

“I need your ID, Mister Riley,” the polite voice of Miss Johnson interrupts his train of thoughts. He hands it over and waits patiently, half expecting to finally get a clue what this is all about. After a few seconds he gets his ID back and his visitor pass with another warm smile of the receptionist. Still no answers, though. “Miss Claude works on the 9th floor. Have a nice stay, Mister Riley!”

“Thanks,” he offers back, clipping the pass to his belt, right next to his badge. Then he steps into the elevator and presses the button with the bold nine, wondering what exactly Root is planning. She could’ve just called him like a normal person.

But maybe that’s where he is wrong.

Root isn’t a normal person and their lives are far from being normal, either. He sighs, steps out of the elevator and shows his visitor pass to a security guard, briefly explaining the reason for his visit. “Miss Claude’s office is down the hall, the fourth door to the left,” the guy tells him.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, already on his way.

He gets curious looks from the people who pass him in the hallway. He remembers that he is holding flowers and that he must look ridiculous walking around like this. He feels ridiculous.

A phone call would’ve been better, he decides.

Then he enters Root’s, or actually Shannon Claude’s office and closes the door behind him. Which makes little difference, since the wall with the door is completely made of glass and only covered by some open white venetian blinds. Futuristic interior designs have no room for privacy privileges, it seems.

He stops himself from looking for any security cameras. He knows they are there.

“John, you made it!” Root smiles shyly and gets up. She gives him a quick peck on his cheeks and mumbles, “play along” before she steps away and looks at the flowers who point towards the floor. “Are these for me?” She feigns innocent surprise.

He tries not to sound annoyed at her award-worthy acting skills. “Yes, Ro—honey,” he manages to get out, stretching his arm with the flowers out. “I hope you like them,” he adds, for good measure. Then he remembers the envelope. “I also got you this,” he says and gives her the envelope as well feeling really silly while doing so. He hopes there is a good reason for this.

Right in time to the opening door behind him. He turns around, facing a young man with a small, but genuine smile. “Is that your famous detective boyfriend, Shannon?”

“You got me, Caleb,” Shannon giggles and Reese has never been more annoyed with Root than in this moment. “He decided to surprise me at work it seems.”

He covers his true feelings with another awkward smile and some polite handshaking. “Nice to meet you, Mister Phipps.” Reese recognizes and remembers that man from pictures and Harold’s own adventure with this man’s number. It seems like a lifetime ago—before Samaritan went online and changed everything.

Caleb nods and looks at Root—Shannon. “Shannon here told us many impressive stories about your work, Detective. It’s nice to finally meet you in person.” He seems sincere about this but there is also a knowing look in his eyes. One that Reese doesn’t like because he doesn’t know what it means. He’s never met this man in person before.

And since when did Root play this charade in this office? She could’ve at least warned him.

He clears his throat to hide his growing confusion and frustration.

Then Caleb notices the flowers when Reese moves a little to the side, not sure why his presence has been required for this…thing.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to barge in and interrupt you two,” Caleb immediately apologizes, lifting both hands but the look in his gaze doesn’t disappear. “It’s nice that you visit her, though. Shannon would probably stay 24/7 at the office if she could. A change of pace seems like a good idea.”

His joke is answered by Reese faking an amused chuckle and Shannon hiding her face for a few seconds behind the flowers.

“That’s not true,” Root mumbles and looks almost flustered with the way she lowers her gaze to the ground and adjusts her black rimmed glasses anew. Or maybe she isn’t looking at the ground, Reese thinks, when her fingers take two flight tickets out of the envelope. “John!” she gasps in faked surprise and he really wants to sigh.

He smiles instead.

See, with Zoe things like this almost work with no effort. He remembers their brief fake marriage with fondness. Maybe it’s because he never hated Zoe—unlike Root.

Old habits die hard.

Caleb is moving towards the door. “Enjoy your vacation, Shannon,” he tells her over the shoulder, waving at both at them through the glass.

Reese stares at Root and the two flight tickets. “What the hell, Root?”

“Relax,” Root tells him, changing her stance and throwing the flowers in her trash bin next to her table. “I needed to make it look real without falling out of my role. Sweet, shy Shannon Claude would never ask for some days off.”

“And how did he…?”

“Oh, I hacked your work email account and wrote to Caleb an email where Detective Riley explains his romantic plans to sweep his girlfriend right out of work to the airport to spend a few days in Florence for their one year anniversary. He knew you’d come at this time around and bring flowers and this,” she lifts the tickets in the air.

Reese only sighs.

So he was basically just a prop for this lie.

Root smiles and slips into her coat. “Don’t worry, we can break up during our romantic trip, if you are so bothered by that,” she promises, turning her PC off.

He narrows his eyes at her subtle but passive aggressive remark. “I really don’t care,” he murmurs. “A warning next time would be nice, though.”

She eyes his closed fist and then shrugs. “Whatever you say, John. Now let’s, go, we need to pack!” Her glasses remain on and she changes her walk when she steps out of the office, not waiting for him.

He is right behind her anyway.

 

*

 

The first thing she sees when her eyes flutter open are her zip tied hands. Fuck. Her ankles are tied together as well, but she finds comfort in the fact that they aren’t tied to the chair. She can work with that.

Shaw blinks a few times and forces to lift her head, still feeling dizzy from the narcotic substance. She remembers the needle and is immediately on high alert.

(A part of her thoughts wander off to Root, but she stamps on that idea, squashes it like a bug, before it even really enters her mind.)

She can’t tell how long she was out, but the window in the room she’s currently in shows London by night. From the view itself she’d guess that she’s in the 5th or 6th floor. She also notes that these windows can be opened.

Looks like Samaritan is either baiting her or has learned shit from her last escape—whatever it is, it’s sloppy and will allow her to get away. When the time is right. 

Shaw lifts her head and braces herself.

Instead of facing Greer’s wrinkle face or even Martine’s smug grin she looks at some stranger, a man in his late fifties, dressed in a tailored three-part-suit who’s gazing at her with an observant look. “Welcome back,” he greets her and his British origin resounds in his voice. It’s not a thick British accent, though. This man has spent some years outside of his country, it seems. And the way he sits in that leather armchair across her speaks of a military past. Relaxed and comfortable, yet on alert and ready to react.

The dangerous and well trained kind of asshole, then, Shaw thinks, testing the limits of her restraints. The zip ties are tight, but not too tight; it’ll take some time to figure out how to get out of them, not to speak of the restraints around her ankles.

“Who the hell are you?” she spits out, at least she tries to because her tongue still feels heavy in her mouth.

The man smiles and nips at his glass with scotch that he hid until now under the table that separates them. “An excellent question, Miss Shaw,” he nods and waits for her reaction.

That confirms that he works for Samaritan. He knows that her alias “Sarah Bradshaw” is bullshit and that means that Greer’s minions have once again found her. She focuses on staying calm and to not show any reaction. Good intel is part of the game. The more she can squeeze out of this guy the better. “You know my name. Only fair to tell me yours,” she says, taking a deep breath.

She could use a drink as well.

The man chuckles. “My name is Alistair Wesley, Miss Shaw. I am a former MI6 agent and the fact that you are sitting with restraints in that chair might seem threatening but this is more of a precautionary step to ensure my safety while trying to explain matters to you.”

“Smart,” is all she says. And then she glares.

He doesn’t seem fazed by that. “I read many things about you, Miss Shaw and I’d rather like to come out alive of this little chat we’re about to have.”

Shaw glares harder. “I won’t tell you anything,” she vows, and means it. She survived Greer and Martine’s interrogation visits. She’ll survive this polite British interrogation crap as well.

Wesley tilts his head a little. “I am not going to ask you any questions, Miss Shaw. In fact, all I am asking for is your undivided attention to what I have to say.”

She doesn’t muster up a reply to that. She just watches how he empties his drink, places the empty glass on the table and takes a discreet look at his watch.

“I know about your time with the Marines. I know that you worked for the government as a part of some secret operation. I also know that your former employers tried to have you killed. And now you work for a man who prefers the name Harold Finch.”

She keeps staring at him with nothing but anger. A neutral default expression that doesn’t change with the mention of Finch’s name.

“He also seems to work with a woman named Root. And I know that you work with a former…acquaintance of mine,” he finally smiles. “John Reese.”

She doesn’t move and doesn’t change the hostile look she gives him. “Sounds like you know all that there is to know about me.”

Wesley seems pleased by that reaction—or maybe, he’s just hoped for any kind of reaction. “I am telling you this, because you disappeared over two months ago and your friends in New York seem to think you are dead. And yet, here you are, alive and dare I say, healthy as ever?”

Now she does form a fist with her right hand. “Is there a point to this?” She is more and more annoyed.

He notices it, too. “Yes, yes, of course there is. See, I am just trying to understand the situation at hand. You must understand and excuse my caution here—it is not every day you meet one of the most wanted criminals of the United States.”

Most wanted? She feels how the expression on her face changes a little.

“Unofficially, of course.” Wesley is watching her very carefully.

Shaw opens the fist again. This man is good, the way he gives her information without giving away everything he knows. He doesn’t seem to work for Samaritan, though. Otherwise he would’ve skipped that part and mentioned Greer or Samaritan by now. Or at least skipped this small talk crap altogether. That also means that the men following her around at the London airport weren’t Samaritan agents either.

This is good news and something she can definitely use to her advantage. She doesn’t show it to this bastard. Regardless of this all, he is still a danger. “I have no idea what the fuck you want me to listen to. The way I see it, you are wasting my time.”

“A fair point,” Wesley agrees, as if he is trying to appease her. “Very well,” he says after a few moments of silence, after taking his options into consideration or whatever. Shaw doesn’t really care, she is beyond her patience level. “I will no longer tiptoe around the obvious. A few years ago, the US government has installed an artificial intelligence to reduce the imminent danger of terrorism and to watch over their flock of sheep.” His voice is now all business and so is the look on his face. “This happened a few years after 9/11. There was even a scandal about it not too long ago. Leaked documents about a dubious funding got the attention of the media and news channels. Now, everyone assumes that with the death of the program called ‘Northern Lights’ the danger to their privacy is banned and they can all rest peacefully at night.”

He leans forward and rests both arms on the table. “However, the dear US citizen don’t know that the program simply was renamed and changed. It is now called Samaritan and it operates under the caring hand of John Greer. Or does Greer do its bidding as well? After all,” he laughs humorlessly, “we’re talking here about an artificial super intelligence that could start a war.”

Shaw keeps her breaths even and slow.

Wesley continues. “You’ve been there, at the stock market exchange. A life changing event for you, wasn’t it?”

Shaw watches his movements very carefully when he gets up to refill his glass. To her surprise he brings her a glass as well, doesn’t cut her loose though. He remains standing right next to the table. “He is a former MI6 as well, just a different generation. John Greer is the name he prefers and I believe you have spent quite some time with him.”

She manages to get a good grip on the glass he placed in front of her. She could try to splash it into his face and take his weapon he most likely carries with him. Or she could just enjoy the 12 year old whiskey and find some more out about that smug asshole in front of her. Option B it is. “How do you know all this?”

“I will get to this part, but I need to fill in the gaps, so to say.” And then he explains in a few sentences how he became aware of Reese’ work for the CIA in Istanbul during his own time as an MI6 operative and how he once shared a drink with Reese. Something about him trying to kill some wealthy rich head of some energy company and how Reese stopped that.

She knows that her eyes widen a little during the story and that it betrays her surprise. Then she glares harder at him, sipping at her drink.

“You see, my...past with Mister Reese is what intrigued Mister Greer. And I believe it is the reason why he reached out to me months ago before I was forced to leave the United States behind.”

She shrugs. “So you do work for him,” she states with a bland expression. And here she thought this was a Samaritan-free dead end of a situation. “I’ll pretend to be surprised.”

“You are wrong, though not entirely,” he tells her. “He _wanted_ me to work for him but I declined in the end. I didn’t want to risk my men and my own life for this cockroach.”

She silently agrees with the term “cockroach”.

“He asked me to eliminate John Reese and his colleagues—he handed me over every information Samaritan and his employees have gathered about your friends. He tried to persuade me into finding John Reese and the rest of his friends.

“He never could tell me a good reason as to why, though, always repeating that I could be part of a new world order and that I was given a chance to settle an old score. That I could leave a mark on this world and bring some peace to it, things I did not achieve while working for the Secret Intelligence Service. Petty reasons to take out someone who impressed me. I do not work on flimsy excuses like that. If I were interested in finishing John Reese off, wiping his life out of this world, I’d have done that a while ago.”

Shaw silently agrees that there is logic behind his reasons. She also thinks that Greer knew this and just used his own points to keep Samaritan’s real interests secret.

“You see, my clients hire me, because of my thorough and careful way of work. Every detail, every small tidbit of information I can get is useful to me. He knew this, seeing as we are both retired MI6 agents. He knew all this and yet asked me to follow his instructions. I said no and almost paid it with my life.” He reveals a scar of a bullet wound that lies between his right jugular vein and right subclavian artery, Shaw observes. It would border on a miracle if the bullet hadn’t nicked at least one of them. “This part should sound familiar to you. I understand you almost got killed too?”

Shaw ignores his question. “Why are you telling me this?” she asks in a disinterested tone, not really sure why she bothers. The Machine got her into this mess by not being helpful when she needed it the most and now she has to listen to this story. She’d prefer it if that former MI6 would get on with it and tell her what is going on.

Or cut her free and start a fist fight. That would work, too.

“I am not finished yet, Miss Shaw,” Wesley reminds her overly politely and the pathetic rest of his British accent is enough to grate on her nerves. “As should be obvious to you, I am no longer in the United States. I had to leave once I declined Mister Greer’s…let’s call it ‘offer’. Not only because I was in imminent danger, since truth to be told that is something that I am used to. No, he robbed me of the chance to ever work in my field of work in that country. My company suffered, my men were almost all wiped out and I decided to go back home. That was a few weeks ago, actually. It had to be around the time you were captured,” he thinks aloud.

Shaw can’t help herself. “I am still waiting for the punchline here.”

Alistair Wesley finishes his drink and gives her a serious look. “I don’t enjoy being played like this, Miss Shaw. Greer wanted me to take the trash out and I have no doubt that he would’ve tried to kill me either way. It happens every day. Every day, the puppet master sacrifices his least favorite puppets.” He comes closer. “It hasn’t escaped my attention what he and his dreaded colleagues are trying to accomplish. How they roam through the cities like hungry plague of locusts.

“I want to make him pay. I read many things about this man, I know a lot about his past and how he worked for a company founded by a few dubious, nameless shadows in Shanghai. You should be familiar with Decima Technologies, yes?”

She hesitates a little, before she caves in. “It’s a just a silly cover,” Shaw fumes. “He works with or for Samaritan now. Decima Technologies was a way to get what he wanted and now he has it.” She takes a deep breath, finishes her drink and thinks what to say next. Then she asks: “Why me?”

Wesley smiles at her. “Isn’t that obvious?”

She wants to throw the chair she’s sitting on at him.

 

*

 

They don’t go to Italy.

In fact, they don’t even go anywhere near Europe. Reese is aware of that when they board a plane of the Chinese Eastern Airlines that will bring them to the Shanghai Pudong International airport with a non-stop flight.

He eyes Root from the side while they wait in the queue to check-in. “Shanghai?” he murmurs in question, holding his fake passport in his left hand, his handbag in his right.

She gives him a firm nod. “The place where it all began.” Her reply is pretty vague but he doesn’t probe further. In a way he learned to just go with Root’s ideas lately. Not as willing as Shaw, but also not quite as suspicious as Finch. He is somewhere in the middle of the trusting-Root-and-her-ideas spectrum.

The check-in goes smoothly, but it is not until they actually enter the plane that Reese allows himself to relax a little. He walks ahead, looks at his ticket and tries to find his seat in the Economy class. He doesn’t mind, though. When he finds their row he steps aside and motions for Root to hand him her handbag over and get the window seat.

She gives him a tight smile. “Always the polite gentleman,” she says in a low, half-mocking tone of hers.

He taps against his right ear and nods at her. “It’s easier to go over plans without me shouting into your cochlear implant,” he tells her and motions again for her to sit down. A man behind Root is starting to get impatient and throws angry looks at him.

Root says nothing, just accepts the gesture with a genuine little smile.

He stuffs their handbag into the compartment above them and sits down, noting with relief that the man who glared at him walks past their row.

“Thank you,” Root whispers into his direction, before putting the seatbelt on. She keeps her eyes trained on what is going on outside her window.

Reese leans back after he put his own seatbelt on and thinks back to the time when he actually hated Root and didn’t want to have her anywhere near their group. They are by no means friends, not exactly, but he doesn’t hate her anymore.

He’s warming up a little to her, if only for Shaw’s sake.

Reese closes his eyes and hopes to nap a little during the 15 hours long flight to an adventure he’s still not sure what to make of. He has no idea what they are actually going to do in Shanghai.

He only knows that it must have something to do with Decima Technologies, since Finch reminded him before his departure to the airport that that’s where the company had its headquarters.

This trip is going to be interesting, he thinks, before the safety instructions start.

Root sighs next to him.

 

*

 

Shaw stares at Wesley with the faint feeling that this man is getting a sick kick out of this entire situation. “You think I am on a path of revenge?”

“Are you not?” he inquires, smiling a little.

“I am in London. Far away from Greer and New York City. Give me a world map and I show you how far away that is,” she grits out, thinking about trying to bite through the zip ties around her wrists. She is getting more and more impatient.

Wesley stifles a chuckle and retrieves a knife out his inner jacket pocket. “Do not try to tell me you don’t want to get back at Greer and his operatives. I am sure you are just as eager to pay him back for what he’s done to you, just as I am.”

“I actually like flying solo, so…” She gives him a pointed look.

Wesley doesn’t seemed fazed by that. If anything, his smile widens a little. It annoys her to no end and she really wants to smash him out the window. “A while ago I met two Americans who pretended to be British that lived for a few years in the United States. But as it is my business to get behind the truth and acquire a fortune out of it, I soon got behind their true identities.” He takes his phone out, hits a few buttons on his touch screen and starts a call. He looks out of the window while he waits for the person on the other end of the line to pick up.

It doesn’t take long. “You can come in now,” Wesley says quietly into his phone and ends the call with a swift touch on the screen. He puts the phone away and turns towards the door that opens in the exact same moment.

And Shaw hides her surprise for the second time this evening when she sees Daniel Casey and Jason Greenfield walk in, Root’s two out of three nerds from her discount nerd team. She presses her lips together and tries to come up with a possible explanation. She just has to connect the dots.

Which is impossible if you don’t actually know what the dots are you want to connect.

“Hey, Shaw,” Casey says with an awkward little smile while both approach her slowly. “Long time no seen,” he continues, looking to Greenfield. He just looks at her, visibly more relaxed than his friend.

Wesley looks pleased with himself. “I’ll be outside,” he tells the two men who just entered the room and walks out.

The door makes no sound when it closes behind him.

Shaw stares at them.

They look right back at her, seemingly clueless what to do now.

She sighs. “So the Machine sent you nerds to London? To this former MI6 dude?”

Greenfield nods. “Yeah. Not a big fan of the weather here,” he admits.

“Or food,” Casey adds. He has a knife in his hands. “I am going to cut you lose. Please don’t kill us, okay? This wasn’t our idea, I swear.”

“Now why would I want to do that?” she wonders out loud, flexing her fingers. She delivers it in a dry tone and enjoys the way Casey’s eyes flicker to Greenfield. “Relax. Root’s friends are off limits to be killed,” she shrugs and stretches her restraint arms out. “Do it.”

Once her hands and ankles are free she shakes her wrists out and reaches for her empty glass that sits in front of her and walks to the bottle to get a refill. “So you are working with this weirdo?” she asks them again, just to make sure she got everything right, and turns around to take a large sip. The burning makes everything better, she notes.

Even if she’s kinda hungry now.

Greenfield shrugs. “We went where the Machine sent us to go. Then, a few weeks ago, we got the first text message from some Ernest Thornhill. Took us some days to figure out it was the Machine who sent us the messages.”

Casey puts the knife away. “It instructed us to find Alistair Wesley. She told us about his background, what has happened to him and how he could be useful for us.”

“Useful? What the fuck are you talking about?” She finishes her drink way faster than she’s intended to. It’s gonna be one of those nights, then.

Greenfield takes over when Casey flinches at her crude words. Where did Root even find these guys? “The new identities are just a temporary fix. Eventually, they will get behind the trick with the manipulated servers and replace them. And then they’ll hunt us down. So, we need a backup plan which is the original plan.”

She stares at him and lets the words sink in for a few seconds, working over them. “You want to shut Samaritan down for good?” she mumbles with disbelief. That sounds like a stupid plan. It didn’t work out the first time when Samaritan just started to throw its temper tantrums, but now it’s gotten way worse. She has three new scars that testify it.

“That’s the goal, yes,” Greenfield smiles, crossing his arms and looking like it’s an excellent plan. “But don’t worry, Wesley doesn’t know about the Machine,” he says in a low tone. “Ernest Thornhill introduced himself to Wesley as someone from Northern Lights who is now on the run from Samaritan.”

“Good.” Shaw places the glass on the table, looks at them and thinks about everything that has happened in the past weeks that had lead her to this point. She walks to the window and watches the traffic jamming up down there because of some road works close to traffic lights.

The Machine has mapped a plan out for her and instead of telling her beforehand what it wanted to do and why everything had to happen, it sent Shaw on a trip around the globe only for her to realize her true purpose in the grand scheme.

It doesn’t come as a complete surprise that the Machine tries to get rid of Samaritan. The only surprise is that it didn’t deem it necessary to tell Shaw about it.

She turns abruptly around. “Where is my phone and earpiece?” she asks, holding out her open palm. 

“So the Machine’s talking to you like to Root?” Casey wonders and Shaw gives him a short look.

“I guess.”

Casey nods with an impressed look in his eyes. “Cool.”

Greenfield clears his throat and hands over both items and a key. “For the balcony door,” he tells her, pointing at the glass door behind her. She hasn’t noticed it before now because she’s been seated with her back to it. “You look like you could use some fresh air,” he offers as a way out and it’s unwelcome, because she can do whatever she wants without some lousy excuse.

Without another word she walks over there, unlocks it and steps outside, ignoring the wet-cold night air around her. She puts the earpiece in her right ear, turns the phone on and connects to the closest and strongest wifi-signal by running a pre-installed app that hijacks networks with a mere tap of the finger.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Shaw rolls her eyes so hard at the phone and takes a deep breath. “How about you stop fucking with my head and start to do some overdue explaining, robot god?”

“ANGER DETECTED IN SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE’S VOICE,” the Machine notes. The snippets of voices it uses have all a different tone to them, and it distracts and annoys Shaw even more.

“No shit, Sherlock,” she hisses at the phone, gripping it tightly with her right hand. Her left hand is clenched into a fist.

There is a pause. “PROCEDURES CATEGORIZED AS NECESSARY,” the Machine amends, as if it could read minds. It probably can.

Fuck that. “To trick me into this mess? You told me I couldn’t go back to New York, not yet. And now you want me to stop Samaritan with these punks? My team is in New York, I don’t need a new one. They could help, you asshole.” She will insult this AI and it better doesn’t dare to stop her. If the Machine was a person and standing right in front of her, it would be lying unconscious on the balcony floor by now.

“CAUTION IS THE KEY INGREDIENT TO THIS PLAN. NO CONTACT TO OTHER ASSETS.”

She feels angrier with each passing second. “I don’t like being lied to. Why is it okay to talk to Root’s nerd team, but not to Root and the others?” She thinks about her previous bosses and what’s happened to her and Cole after they’d been lied to. How trust with no questions asked can bite you in the ass.

But it’s not that she didn’t ask. She’s spent a lot of time in Mexico City to hold the phone in her hand and to ask the Machine to give her some answers. It’s really not her fault she has to work with a moody AI.

The Machine waits a few seconds with her reply. “SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE’S MOST PROBABLE SELF-CHOSEN DESTINATION: 40.714604° N, 73.998311° W.”

The phone in her hand opens the browser app installed on it, types on its own the coordinates into the search bar and starts to search for results. A small map appears as the first suggestion, showing her the address of the subway station in New York that Finch declared as their new headquarters after the library has been closed for business until further notice—or Samaritan’s death.

It takes her a few seconds to understand what the Machine is trying to tell her with the coordinates. She keeps staring at the phone.

“PROBABILITY OF TEAM MEMBERS’ DEATHS IN OPTION 156,478: 89.78%,” the Machine counters with no delay. “LEAST DESIRED OUTCOME,” it continues to say in voice-snippets. “PRIMARY PROTOCOL RUNNING: PROTECT EACH ASSET.”

She’s going to throw the fucking phone into the Thames that’s glistening in the distance. Her phone is going to break sooner than later anyway if she’s going to grip it a little more tightly. She couldn’t care less.

“SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE’S NEW PRIORITY IS COMPATIBLE WITH PRIMARY PROTOCOL.”

Shaw breathes through her nose, still shooting hateful looks at the front camera of her phone. She wishes they could’ve skipped the whole needles and restraints part to get the Machine to finally talk to her about business. But she’ll take it. “Meaning?”

“PROVIDING SECURITY. PROTECTING OTHER ASSETS. LOYALITY. ASSETS MAIN QUALITIES ARE MOST COMPATIBLE WITH MY CORE CODING.”

Okay, so she did run out of an elevator to push an override button and almost died to save the others. What does that have to do with the Machine? It’s not like it could “die” to save somoene, right? “What’s your point?”

“CONTACTING OTHER ASSETS DETERIORATES CHANCES OF SURVIVAL. STAY. SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE IS NOT ALONE IN THE DARK. FOLLOW PRIMARY PROTOCOL.”

Shaw looks at the glowing city in front of her. Her black hoodie is not doing a great job at keeping the cold away from her, but she barely notices it. She thinks about the Machine and how lines of code have the capacity to care for people at all. She feels herself calm down. “This is insane, you know that, right? We can’t take down Samaritan just like that. If it was that easy, Root would’ve done it by now.” Root is some weird computer genius or whatever. And even she admitted when giving them the new identities that it’s not possible to take Samaritan down just like that.

“COMPLEX BACK UP PLAN IN THE MAKING,” the Machine admits, not missing a beat. “STATE OF COMPLETION: 28.39%.”

“But why not send Root on this trip? She lives for the thing you two have going,” Shaw says and looks down at the phone again. “Why me?”

“PRIMARY ANALOG INTERFACE IS OCCUPIED. PART OF BACK UP PLAN.”

Shaw almost smiles. Well, she stops glaring at the phone that is. Taking down an evil robot god as a form of apology from the Machine? Yeah, she can live with that.

“So,” she sighs, defeated and ready to listen once again to whatever the Machine has come up with. “What exactly is the plan?”

 

*

 

It’s raining in Shanghai and fairly cold with only 42,8° F. John looks at Root who is currently busy studying the map of Shanghai on her phone. He wonders if the Machine is talking to her, but she’s lacking the cheerfulness around the edges of her eyes whenever that’s been the case. Then again, she’s more somber than ever in general ever since the stock market exchange.

“Let’s go, big lug,” she calls him over her shoulder and starts to walk forward. He doesn’t mind the nicknames, he is only a little concerned why they are here. Root hasn’t been ready to talk on the plane, only giving him vague answers to his questions. All he knows right now is that they are here for information about Decima Technologies and Samaritan.

He soon finds himself in a rented car that they never rented but is assigned to Root’s fake alias all the same and he wonders, if that’s how an adventure with Root always looks like. Blind trust until the very end?

“Where are we going?” he asks, when Root starts typing in the destination into the GPS. He can’t read the address on the display, though, the angle is all wrong of the device from his point of view.

“The Quing Pu Prison,” she smiles at him and makes it sound like they are going to Disneyland.

He keeps his expression even when he asks: “To do what?”

“Hopefully finding someone very important,” Root murmurs, starts the engine and pulls out of the parking spot.

He starts to load his gun.

 

*

 

Shaw is still outside, leaning on the balustrade of the balcony and stares at nothing in particular. “You are recruiting people who can help us in your grand master plan to delete a robot god from this planet?”

“NEW ALLIES VITAL PART OF THE PLAN.”

“How?”

“CURRENT NUMBER OF ASSETS ALLOWS NO ACTION AGAINST SAMARITAN.”

Shaw looks down at the phone and wonders not for the first time if she’s slowly going nuts with the voice in her ear. “So, you are recruiting people,” she starts. “And you are sure this Wesley dude and the two nerds are going to be useful with all that?” It’s not that she doesn’t trust the Machine…she’d pick the Machine over Samaritan on any day. But inviting more people to this insane crusade seems a little reckless.

Fine by her. But how is it fine by the Machine? Doesn’t sound something that Finch would teach the Machine. Then again, Finch sometimes has trouble to understand his own creation. 

“WESLEY PASSED FIRST TEST.”

Huh. Shaw frowns. “What was it?”

“FINDING AND TALKING TO SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE AS INSTRUCTED BY ME. I AM ERNEST THORNHILL.” There is a small pause. “SORRY.”

“I’ve had worse, I guess,” Shaw grumbles, still torn between being angry about this or to just go with it. Not the first time she got abducted for a fun trip.

“JUNE 8TH,” the Machine suddenly says. And that’s it.

When no more comments follow, she concludes that the pep talk is over. She puts the phone away but keeps the earpiece in—just in case the Machine does explain that date. Is it a deadline? A warning? Maybe she should consult the nerds. 

She shivers once she enters the warm living room and spots Greenfield and Casey sitting on a black leather couch with open laptops in front of them. Shaw rolls her eyes. Then she sees Wesley sitting at the table and watching her, two men guarding the door to the apartment.

“Did you think about it?” Greenfield asks and closes his laptop. His behavior doesn’t indicate that Wesley’s presence is bothering him. In fact, they all look pretty relaxed. She wonders how long they’ve already worked together and how much they trust this former MI6 guy.

“Yes,” she says slowly, steps closer to the table and looks straight at Wesley. “I need my things back,” she reminds him, buying herself time to assess the situation. The Machine told her that it’s safe to trust these people. Better safe than sorry, though.

“Of course, Miss Shaw.” He gestures to the door, where her back, jacket and gun are waiting for her. “Now, will you join your friends here and me to make Greer pay by swallowing his own medicine?”

Shaw leans over the table. “What happens on June 8th?”

Wesley’s smile widens. “That’s the date where I will kill Greer.”

“That’s...confident,” Shaw comments with raised brows.

Greenfield comes to stop next to her. “We are pretty sure that Greer is going to try and get to the Bilderberg Meeting in Austria. It takes place near Telfs, that much we know. At the Interalpen Hotel.”

She gives him a puzzled look. “Bilderberg Meeting?”

“It’s a meeting for the rich and the famous,” Casey says from the couch, still busy looking at something on his open laptop. “You need an invite to get to that meeting. No press is allowed. It’s a pretty big mystery what happens on these meetings, but there are many, many conspiracy theories about them on the web.” He turns his laptop around to show her something that appears to be the official website of these meetings.

She points with her hand at it. “Doesn’t seem like they’re trying very hard for secrecy,” she says in a dry tone.

“It just explains the purpose of these meetings, not what they are about or why they even happen each year in a different location.” He switches to another open tab. It looks like a transcript of sorts, hosted by WikiLeaks. Okay, so that is kinda fishy. “These transcripts show what is discussed on these conferences. And it’s kinda creepy that all this happens behind closed doors, to be honest.” He downloads some files and starts to print them out. “If Greer manages to attend this meeting this year, then we’re done.” Casey closes his laptop and looks at her. “You have to imagine a room filled with over one hundred of the most influential and some of the wealthiest people on this planet, who gather around in a room and talk about politics and business. Doesn’t that seem a little worrisome to you?”

“The clue being here, Miss Shaw, that even presidents and other politicians participate in these meetings. The unspoken rule is: you get an invitation, you follow that invitation,” Wesley adds from his seat. Greenfield nods.

“Okay, okay, fine. Whatever. What does that have to do with Greer? He’s not even really in the picture. The government is doing the official talks about their new shiny AI, not him.” She knows this, because if Greer would’ve been involved in some super important business, she wouldn’t have had to look into his wrinkle face as often as she did during her stay in that NSA facility.

Wesley adjusts the lapel of his jacket. “Greer is going to this meeting that much you can be certain of. Imagine, if Greer could convince other important people from all over the world what a phantastic job his artificial monstrosity can do. Imagine, if other countries would join him and offer their feeds to this AI _voluntarily_. It would go online on a global level, Miss Shaw. There will be no stopping it once Greer gets what he wants. The world would be in the hands of one artificial intelligence that could destroy everything we know.”

Shaw thinks that it’s a bit melodramatic to make it sound as if an impending apocalypse was knocking at their door. Then again, she was there and knows what Samaritan can do.

She presses her lips together. “But how would Greer make it to the meeting? Wouldn’t the US government send someone else, someone who actually works for the government by daylight?”

Wesley looks at Greenfield. “We think that officially Senator Ross Garrison is supposed to show up at the G7 conference in Germany. It’s scheduled to go from June 7th to 8th. The Bilderberg Meeting starts on June 11th.”

Shaw gives him an annoyed look. “But?” Seriously, why does she have to ask for each tidbit of information.

Wesley takes over again. “Senator Garrison will never leave the country. And the specifics on how Greer will manage to get to the Bilderberg Meeting are unknown to us, but he will take Garrison’s place, I am sure of it. And we cannot allow this. Hence, on June 8th a bullet will find its rightful target and Greer won’t pose much of a threat anymore.”

“Yeah, but Samaritan is going to be still online, no matter if that old fart lives or dies.”

The former MI6 agent nods in agreement. “I suppose that’s your part of the plan to take care of, then?”

She gapes at him. “That’s in almost three months from now.”

Wesley and the rest just nod.

“YOUR FLIGHT LEAVES TOMORROW AT 8:42 AM,” the Machine chirps in her ear.

Shaw closes her eyes and waits.

“NEXT STOP: MOSCOW.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr if you have questions or want to yell at me for being such a slow sloth: [tinygrumpshaw](https://tinygrumpshaw.tumblr.com)


	4. i am a soldier on my own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am still in denial about the nearing end of person of interest. feel free to join me (and maybe this fic will help?)
> 
> a new chapter! i am getting better at updating! sloth mode seems over! pls enjoy.
> 
> (many thanks to the brave soul who had to read the unedited version of this and helped me to make it better.)

Root gives the guard a charming smile when he checks their fake documents. She is Augusta King again, the FBI agent that is here with her partner, Agent John Stewart, on an extraterritorial investigation to solve a cyber crime that involves a man named Michael Winston.

And not one of these names is real.

No wonder then that the smile she gives the guard isn’t real either. He gives her the documents back, wishes her a good stay in rapid Chinese and waves to the guard sitting in the control room to lift the barrier. Root rolls the window up and looks to Reese, who is visibly more tense in his seat now.

“You didn’t tell me we would just drive into a prison,” he states, keeping his eyes trained on the armed guards that give them curious if not suspicious looks. His right hand is hidden by his coat, where he is holding his gun, she’s sure.

Root starts with a low hum. “Are you scared?” she asks and if Reese was somebody who fell easily for a bait like this, he wouldn’t be sitting here. This mission requires patience, skill and the right timing. And a mission like this is familiar territory for Reese. Even without the Machine’s helping hand she knows that Reese was the only right choice here.

Not that she had much of a choice to begin with.

She parks the car right next to an emergency exit and turns the engine off. Then she rummages in her bag and hands him a folder with fake documents. She flips it open and looks at Reese to check if he’s paying attention. “This is your badge. Just be your broody, suspicious self. It’s gonna sell the FBI agent persona without a hitch.”

“Where did you get these?” Reese wonders, taking the papers from her and putting them into the inner coat pocket. The unsaid “did Finch help you?” floats between them. Which would be a first, considering where Harold and she stood right now. Not on the best of terms.

She tilts her head and gives him a playful smile that will never reach her eyes. “I did this kind of thing for a long time before I even knew about the Machine’s existence. I am good at this, don’t worry.”

“It’s not me I am worried about,” he admits, blinking slowly and searching her gaze for something that will alarm him.

Root remains calm. She understands. John is someone whose instinct is to protect others before he thinks about his own safety. “Michael Winston is an old friend of yours,” she winks and gets out of the dark SUV. She closes the door, smiles at the guards who don’t bat an eye at them (they’ve been probably informed about their arrival by the guard at the entrance via radio) when they enter the huge building.

Reese holds the door open and follows her. Someone is already waiting for them, another guard in a different uniform. Someone with a higher rank, not that Root particularly cares. Just another face she has to show patience to. She explains in Chinese why they are here. They are led into a different building complex, all while the guy talks about the various security systems and how much pride they take in having almost no trouble at all. Root begs to differ. This man eyes the distance between him and the cells very closely. Every time some prisoner yells something vulgar at their direction, he flinches slightly.

“He’s a little jumpy,” Reese whispers behind her.

Root barely nods, still pretending to look around and notice the levels of security measurements their guide points out. The man’s voice is as boring as his explanations. “It’ll work in our favor, should Plan A not work out,” she whispers back, right in time before their prison tour guide looks at her again with a nervous little smile.

She answers it with her condescending one.

They climb some stairs and get to the upper level, before halting in front of a solitary cell. Reese cranes his neck to get a better look at the inmate sitting in the dark and not even looking up at them. The man who brought them here reaches for his keycard, instructs two nearby guards to handcuff the wrists and ankles of the prisoner and to bring him into an interrogation room. It’s the one with the secluded security system, which should buy them some time once she disables it. Excellent.

The door swings open and Root steps back, forcing Reese to follow her step, and they watch how a man with a really short hair cut and a thick beard steps out of his cell, squints at them and immediately recognizes Reese.

She feels relieved. It’s a reaction she can work with. It means that the trust can easily be re-established. They follow the guards and prisoner to the interrogation room, where she takes her phone out to deactivate the hidden microphones she is sure someone was told to turn on. She trusts no one in this building, especially not the friendly smiling officials around here.

The man eyes them with disbelief, sitting in that cold metal chair that is screwed on tightly to the ground. Root takes a seat across from him and places a file on the table between them. Then she looks back at her partner in crime, who is standing behind her chair.

Reese looks like he is trying to solve a really hard puzzle. And then his eyes widen minimally in recognition.

She snorts and turns back to face the prisoner.

“Henry Peck,” she smiles. She doesn’t miss how the man in front of her winces at the mention of his real name. She opens the file and turns it around. It contains nothing but a picture of Harold Finch. “I think it’s time that you came home, hm?”

 

*

 

Shaw is ready to leave this place, Wesley, and the others behind when the call of her name stops her.

“Here,” Greenfield says behind her and hands her four drives and another laptop once she turns around. “You gonna need it on your next stop.”

“What for?”

He shrugs with an apologetic look. “I have no idea. It’s modified, though. Made for fast transfers of huge data files.”

She shrugs, because she really has no clue what she would need another laptop for. She takes the things from him and walks over to her backpack, trying to make sense of all this. What would she need four drives for? Illegally downloaded movies?

“Oh, almost forgot. You gonna need these, too,” Greenfield says from behind her again and holds some cables out to her. She grabs them as well, not even bothering to ask why she might need them. In the end the answers always come to her one way or another.

Wesley makes a satisfied noise. Then he glances at his watch. “I fear we must depart to find Mister Daizo and accompany him on our own little business trip.”

Shaw turns her head and looks at Casey and Greenfield. “So, he’s here, too?”

“He just arrived yesterday,” Casey admits. “We’ll have to do something in Germany. And then we’ll return to the United States.”

She doesn’t ask him to explain what exactly it is they have to do in Germany. Judging from the technical gear they are packing into their bags, it looks like it’s gonna be some hacking business. Not really her style, anyway.

“And I have to meet some clients in Berlin,” Wesley adds, as if she cared.

She doesn’t, not really.

She zips her bag closed, slips into her coat, and shoulders her bag. That damn laptop and the drives added a noticeable weight to it, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. She moves forward, watching how Wesley is holding the door open for her. “A driver is waiting for you downstairs to bring you to your hotel room, Miss Shaw,” he tells her with another of his polite little smiles.

“Great,” she gives back. Well, her flight is tomorrow, plenty of time to keep herself occupied until then.

 

*

 

“What are you doing?” Peck hisses and leans forward, glaring at her.

“Calm down, Peck,” Root suggests in a friendly tone but with a warning edge to it.

“Stop using that name, you’ll get me in a lot of trouble!”

“You look like you already _are_ in a lot of trouble,” Reese notes with a dry tone behind her and she smiles a little, hiding it by lowering her head and checking how much time has passed since disabling the microphones in this room and now.

Peck sighs. “I remember you,” he says and Root doesn’t have to look up to know that he is glaring at John now. “How did you find me?” He leans back in his chair and feigns being calm and collected.

He isn’t, though. He keeps looking at Root and checking the door. She taps on her phone, nods satisfied and pushes the last button. 15 seconds from now counting.

She puts her phone away. “I think we should relocate our little chit chat, if you don’t mind, Henry,” she tells him, ignoring his question for now. There will be time later.

Reese shifts behind her. “What is your plan?”

It’s impressive how far they’ve come: from hatred to reluctant trust. She finds his gaze and shrugs. “I know the beginning of my plan, but in 4 seconds we will see if my envisioned ending is possible as well.”

Peck just watches them.

Time’s up and suddenly the alarm system is going off, the collective opening of cell doors and the frantic yelling and running of guards can be heard.

Root grins. “Let’s go!”

The amazing thing about causing mayhem in a highly guarded prison is that no one notices that the cameras aren’t working anymore. Or that Root steals the security card attached to the belt of an officer who is on the phone, trying to explain in short to the security company what has happened. Which is pointless, because Root redirected the call to a very bored Leon Tao, who speaks exactly zero words Chinese.

“He sounds angry,” Reese notes, hovering behind Peck.

Root shrugs. “I paid Leon for picking the phone up, the rest is up to him.”

“You dragged Leon into this?”

“I paid his debt to a Bulgarian poker group in Brooklyn.”

Reese groans. “That explains Finch’s text message from earlier, then,” he mumbles to himself, not elaborating further. Someone is running past them, not even looking at them.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Peck asks, staring at Root with a confused expression. He has a little trouble keeping up with them, but there is really no time to get his restraints off right now.

Root just smiles at him and turns right, unlocks a door with the stolen key card and pushes the heavy metal door open. It leads to a staircase, just as memorized when she’s started to put this plan together. She doubts that John knows how long this plan has been in the making and she doesn’t especially care to reveal that secret. He hasn’t expressed his interest in that anyway, so far.

They reach another door that turns out to be the emergency exit to the parking area right next to where she’s parked their black SUV, just like planned. Heavily armed units are entering the building, wearing heavy body armor, helmets with visors and shields.

“You are going to put me on the backseat and drive me outside, just like that?” Henry whispers in disbelief.

Root shakes her head and opens the trunk.

He stares at her. “Oh no.”

Her smile widens and she takes out a syringe from the inner coat pocket. “You’ll end up in that trunk one way or another, Henry.”

Reese tenses behind Peck. “Root—”

“Fine, whatever.” Peck curses in defeat and starts climbing into the trunk. Root nods in approval and hides the syringe again. “It shouldn’t be long.”

“Where are we—” Peck starts but she closes the trunk before he can finish his question.

Reese is already opening the door to the passenger seat.

 

*

 

“What are they doing?” Shaw whispers into the darkness of her luxurious hotel suite and wonders when the feeling of being insane when talking to an invisible entity left her system. Not entirely, but it’s barely there on the surface.

There is static in her earpiece. And then: “SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE IS NOT ALLOWED TO FOLLOW THEM,” the Machine warns her and Shaw isn’t offended by that. She knows that it is not the lacking trust of the Machine, it’s the cautious nature of the Machine that reminds her so much of Harold that drives the robot god to say this. And she’s fine with that.

“I won’t”, she promises.

“PRIMARY ANALOG INTERFACE AND PRIMARY ASSET ARE ON AN UNAUTHORIZED MISSION.”

Shaw frowns at the dark ceiling. Then she sits up, takes her phone in her hand and checks the time. 1:41am. “What do you mean by ‘unauthorized’? Did something happen to Finch?”

“NOT AUTHORIZED BY ME,” the Machine clarifies, ignoring her question about Finch. “ADMIN IS ALIVE,” she adds after a beat or two.

Shaw is even less sleepy now. “Why didn’t you stop her? Them?” she quickly corrects herself when she remembers that Reese is with Root on that weird ass mission somewhere around the globe.

“ONGOING CALCULATION. MISSION PROVES TO BE IMPORTANT.”

“In what sense?”

“IMPORTANT TO FIGHT BACK,” the Machine cryptically allows.

And Shaw understands. She lies back down, tugs at the covers and takes a deep breath. “Set my alarm clock.”

“ALREADY DONE.”

“Great.”

“THERE WILL BE A PACKAGE AT THE RECEPTION TOMORROW MORNING. TRAVEL PAPERS.”

Shaw only pushes her faces deeper into the pillow.

 

*

 

Root eyes Henry curiously. He has finished buttoning up one of Reese’ white shirts and is now slipping into a slightly too wide jacket, lent by the Man in the Suit himself. She looks over to Reese, who is leaning next to the door, arms crossed and watching Peck with attentive eyes.

They are in a cheap hotel that offers no wifi and thinks little of registering guests at the check in. She paid them a generous tip for allowing her to pay their stay for one night in cash.

“What now?” Peck asks, looking between her and Reese. “How did you find me? And who sent you?”

“How about you take a seat, Henry,” Root offers sweetly, walking over to the mini bar and taking out a bottle of water that she twists open and places in front of him.

Peck scratches his beard and stares a long moment at the opened bottle in front of him. “Thanks,” he mumbles eventually, taking a small sip out of it before taking a few gulps.

“I found you because you found something, let’s say, important to my interests,” she tells him, sitting down at the small table in front of him. “It’s what got you into trouble in Shanghai, isn’t it?”

Peck lowers his gaze and his fingers reach for the lid of the bottle, turning it nervously around. “I suppose,” he allows, still not at ease.

This will require patience, she realizes. Not her strongest suit, but she can do this. She smiles once more at him. “Why don’t you tell us what got you into prison?”

“I thought you knew.”

“He doesn’t,” she shrugs and motions with her hand in John’s general direction. “And I always enjoy to get a confirmation for my theories,” she adds for good measure. “You went looking for Decima Technologies. Why?”

Peck keeps rotating the bottle lid between his fingers. “The picture of the man you showed me in that interrogation room? He gave me a new identity.”

She tilts her head.

“He also said that maybe I should find my own secret to uncover, and I am sure he just meant to drive me away from finding out the truth he gave me. About… the Machine,” he almost whispers, meeting her gaze.

Root sits up a little, tilting her head to her good ear. “And that’s when you decided to abandon your new address and go on an adventure in Shanghai?”

“My new job was boring as hell, but it paid well. I was working for some IT company in Boston that offers secure servers for companies all over the US. My job was simple. I am good at analyzing things, and coding is… just. Well. Anyway,” he takes a deep breath, finally putting the lid of the bottle down. “There was this scandal about the government spying on us, and I followed the news what this group Vigilance was doing in New York. And then—it all stopped. Vigilance disappeared after the Black Out. The news said that the government would start an investigation on that matter. But that’s it. We never got the result of this ‘investigation.’

“And then, the collapse at the New York stock market happened out of nowhere.”

Root just watches, not saying a word.

Peck sighs and continues. “I worked for the NSA a long time. Seven years of analyzing data makes you...notice things. And this? This huge thing that happened at the stock market? No one ever delivered a satisfying explanation to this that went beyond some media made assumptions. In fact, I looked into it and some stock market analysts just disappeared!” he says, his brows furrowed. “I left Boston then. I thought, the Machine was behind this, that after the government abandoned this project it got… out of control.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Root tells him quietly, sitting back in her chair. She crosses her arms and watches Peck how he tries to find the next words.

He rubs his forehead. “I just knew that no hacker would be able to do this. The NSA would notice activity like this. But there is this genuine belief that the stock market could drop like this, even though some people spoke of an cyber attack executed by terrorists. There was no trace. And I thought the Machine is the only ASI that was built.” He closes his eyes for a brief moment before looking to the side, out of the hotel room window. It’s probably dark outside by now but the closed curtains hide that sight. “I remembered then. And that’s when everything started to make sense.”

“What do you mean?” This time it’s John asking. She hasn’t even noticed when he appeared next to her and now he’s sitting down on the last chair they have in this room and looks at Peck with a guarded expression.

Peck looks at his hands. “I started to work for the NSA in the beginning of 2005. In summer 2005, a project called ‘Samaritan’ was shut down, and I only knew that it was supposed to help monitor crime. It’s how I knew that the government wanted to built an AI, you know? And to be honest, before I met your… friend who built this Machine? I thought that the Samaritan Purge in summer 2005 was a scam and that the government finished building this AI in secret.

“Which, looking back, makes little sense. Arthur Claypool and three other engineers working on this project were fired after the purge happened and their hard work was destroyed. Or so I thought. I don’t know what Claypool is up to, but I did find out what happened to the engineers back in my days as an NSA analyst. They went to Shanghai and founded a company called ‘Decima Technologies’ that worked closely with the Chinese government. It was classified information, the names of these engineers in that file where blacked out.”

Root leans forward again, no longer casual about listening to Peck’s tale. “Oh,” she breathes, storing this information away. That’s new.

Reese says nothing.

Peck nods. “Yeah. I thought about all this after the stock market exchange and that’s when I realized that something fishy is going on. Because how can Samaritan not exist but at the same time it can? I knew why the government shut this project down—they realized what harm an open system like that could do. That’s why I was so horrified when I first heard that an AI was built by the government. I thought it was Samaritan.” He touches his beard again. “I started to do research on Decima, trying to get behind the secret of that company and if the three engineers ever returned to the US to finish what got seemingly destroyed during the Samaritan Purge.

“I found out that the company was taken over by a former MI6 in 2013, but I never found out his name. It was hard enough to find anything at all while trying to maintain a normal life with my fake identity. So I went to Shanghai where the headquarter of the company was supposed to be.” Peck pauses.

Root understands now. “You tried to break into the governmental archives to find out what the Chinese government had on Decima and China arrested you for it.”

Peck sighs in defeat. “I didn’t even get anything useful. No names, no numbers. I only found out that Decima technically never officially existed in Shanghai, and that the three founders of the company died under mysterious circumstances. I think one file mentioned a car crash? Arthur Claypool was nowhere mentioned, though. He was the project manager of Samaritan, the software engineer that started it all. I wonder—”

“He died a few months ago, actually,” Reese interrupts him softly before Peck can start to spin some conspiracy theory.

Peck looks down. “Oh,” he says and clears his throat. “Well, there is one more thing I did notice before I got busted. Something called Research and ISA. I don’t know.”

Root perks up. “What exactly did you read?”

Peck blinks at her intense reaction. “I am not sure… Just, there were different project names, code names of units that made no sense to me, these kind of things. Military related.”

Root gets to her feet and paces around.

“Are you okay?” Reese asks, still on his seat.

“I’m fine,” she says with a slight tremor. Her thoughts are racing. The Machine didn’t tell her about this, which can mean only two things: 1) Samaritan got better at hiding its activity or 2) the Machine is no longer able to keep track of everything Samaritan does. Both options could be true, and both are equally terrifying. It gives their opponent a huge advantage and the freedom to work behind the Machine’s back.

At the same time Peck’s story confirms something she’s suspected all along. Greer isn’t the founder of Decima Technologies and he most likely got rid of his employers once they became an inconvenience to his own agendas.

She turns back around.

“Root?” Reese gives her a worried look. “What has all of this to do with Shaw?”

So he knew damn well what this was about. She smiles at him, bitterness on her tongue. “This is about Samaritan,” she points out, hard and unforgiving. It’s not like she hoped for Peck to find any clues on abducted former military who are part of the neurotransmitter program.

(She did. Of course she did.)

It does unsettle her to know that Greer had an eye on Research and the ISA units working for the Machine without knowing it. Root can only guess what these lists contained, what kind of Codes Peck saw, but it worries her nonetheless.

It hits too close to home, now that Sameen is gone.

“You should return with us to the United States,” Root tells Peck and turns towards him. “You are in more danger if you stay here.”

“But if the Chinese government knows about what I’ve done then… Samaritan will know as well?” He doesn’t sound very sure and he looks first to her then to Reese for help.

“No,” Root says slowly. “I don’t think so. It rarely leaves the US and only follows its agents that are roaming all over the world. If it wanted you dead, an agent would’ve have found you and killed you, long before I found out about your fate. Greer had to cut ties with China it seems, otherwise he’d have found out about it. But since Decima technically doesn’t exist anymore…”

“… the Chinese government doesn’t have to cooperate with Greer,” Reese finishes her sentence.

She nods with a smile.   

Peck looks unnerved by all of that. “Okay, I have to know now. How do you know about Samaritan? You guys… you aren’t from the US government, I know that much. And sure as hell no FBI agents. So how did you figure it out?”

She shrugs. “That is none of your concern. In fact, the less you know about us, the better for your health. Do you understand? You staying safe should be your main concern right now. Your only concern, in fact.”

“Wait, then what was this all about?”

“I didn’t know about the engineers,” she admits. She feels John shifting next to her. “Or how Greer got his claws on Decima. I never believed he was the sole founder. He is still an agent at heart, still following orders. I just couldn’t put the pieces together, but now it all makes sense.”

Reese hums. “He must’ve killed the actual founders after finding out about Samaritan’s existence. They became an inconvenience to him and his plans.”

Root nods, still not sure what to make of this. It’s not the lead she hoped to find, but a lead nonetheless. And a very important one at that. “Call Harold over the sat phone. Tell him we’re coming home.”

 

*

 

Her plane lands at the Moscow Domodedovo airport at 2:53pm local time. Shaw is not sure what to expect from her stay in this city, but at least she likes this place. It’s not the first time she’s in Moscow. It makes things easier. It’s a great opportunity to refresh her Russian a little.

She stands in the arrival hall and pretends to wait for someone, while she looks at her Nokia phone. Two messages. The first one reads:

**RENT A CAR. RESERVED ON YOUR TRAVEL NAME.**

The second one displays the name of the rental company and where to find it.

Shaw hopes it’s at least a nice car of her liking. She puts the phone into her coat pocket and walks towards the instructed company stand. She travels currently under the name Sasha Grimes. A silly ass name and yet with the right amount of Russian touch for a second generation immigrant with Russian background.

The Machine knows its shit, Shaw thinks, while she pretends to be a neurosurgeon who just arrived to this airport to surprise her proud parents with a visit. Shaw is surprised how well her Russian still works. And how nosy people can get.

She is even more surprised to get a Mercedes Benz car key handed over after signing the slip of paper.

The car she finds in the parking block is a black sleek Mercedes Benz C-class. It’s totally worth its horrendous rent fee per day.

Shaw whistles and looks at a camera. And smiles a little.

Her phone vibrates.

**YOU ARE WELCOME.**

Shaw shakes her head and puts her luggage into the trunk.

It smells like a new car and soft leather inside.

 

*

 

Her hotel is close to the airport which makes it clear that her stay in Moscow is once again of short nature. She can live with that. In all honesty, she wonders how long this travel adventure will go on.

She knows what the goal is, at least.

How her stay in Russia is going to work towards achieving it is still a mystery to her, but she is confident in finding out.

Shaw naps for two hours after arriving in her room, takes a hot shower and eats a delicious dinner. Then she returns to her room to set up her smartphone so she can be once again in contact with the Machine via her ear piece. She’d never imagined to miss the mechanical snippets-of-voices-voice in her ear.

Once this is done she checks the news to keep up with what is happening in New York. Nothing out of the ordinary. Which worries her a little.

“What are they up to?”

“PRIMARY ANALOG INTERFACE, PRIMARY ASSET AND POTENTIAL RECRUIT ALMOST HOME.”

Shaw skims through some article praising some Samaritan founded school for its progressiveness. Yeah, sure. “Potential Recruit?”

“FORMER PERSON OF INTEREST.”

Shaw looks at the webcam of her laptop. She knows the Machine can see her. “Who?”

“PRIMARY ASSET SAVED HIM. BEFORE YOUR TIME WORKING FOR ADMIN.”

That is even more confusing. She accepts that she won’t even know who it is Root and Reese decided to pick up from god knows where. In fact, maybe it’s best not to know. After all, this has been an unauthorized mission.

She closes the laptop and leans back against the headrest. “What are my plans for tomorrow?”

“CHECK CALENDAR.”

Shaw reaches for the charging phone and opens the calendar application. It has three entries:

  1. 7:00am: Meeting with L. Pierce, adress: ul. Maroseyka 9/2 + [attached file_list.txt]
  2. 9:00am: Castorama, adress: Novoryazanskoye sh. 5 + [attached file_list2.txt]
  3. 6:30pm: Meeting with P. Yogorov, address: ul. Frunzenskaya 3-ya + [attached file_list3.txt]



Her hand slowly lowers the phone. “Yogorov? Are we talking about Peter Yogorov here?” Shaw is pretty sure that whatever the plan for her stay in Moscow is, it won’t end in a good way. She glares at her phone. “Why do you want me to meet a Russian mobster?”

“CHECK ATTACHED FILES.”

With a heavy sigh she follows the instruction. The first list contains mostly computer hardware: several external drives with parameters that would probably make sense to Finch or Root, cables of different kinds and even two laptops of a specific kind. It’s like reading a language she doesn’t speak.

The next list is easier to read, but doesn’t make any more sense. It has only five items on it: a tool box, rope (10 meters), work gloves size small, a work mask, and a drill. That’s it.

The last list makes her pause. It contains fun things like ammonium nitrate explosives (8 kilograms), blasting wire (100 meters), a detonator—in short: things that make Shaw’s breath hitch in excitement.

“What are we gonna blow up?” Judging by the amount of things it can’t be a huge ass building. Maybe it’s just one floor. Now buying a drill makes more sense.

“IT IS TIME FOR SLEEP.”

“What. Are. We. Blowing. Up.”

“AVERAGE AMOUNT OF SLEEP SHOULD BE 7 HOURS.”

“Fuck you.”

She is tempted to throw the phone against the wall. She doesn’t. Instead she turns the TV on, even if it’s a petty way to stay up out of spite.

Eventually she gets too sleepy to keep it up. She sets the alarm, changes into shorts and a top and lies down.

She falls asleep within minutes.

 

*

 

It was Root’s idea to let Peck keep his beard. They’ve bought him new clothes in Shanghai, a simple suit paired with an expensive looking watch and a pair of dark shades, that he is currently wearing.

Reese isn’t sure if Samaritan will recognize Peck or not, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

They climb into another black SUV that is probably FBI property and he doesn’t even want to know how Root keeps playing her part so well. It is clear that she’s still in her Augusta King persona, the FBI agent that needed Detective Riley’s help.

“Where are we going?” Peck is sitting on the backseat, playing with his watch.

It’s barely 5 am. The sun isn’t even up yet.

Reese turns around to him while Root pulls the car out of the parking spot in one sleek movement. “We’ll bring you to one of our safe houses. You won’t be able to leave it for now, but it’s for your best.”

“So I’m a prisoner again?”

“With better food and cable TV,” Root reminds him with a smile in her voice. She sounds very tired. “Not to mention the view.”

Reese nods and looks at Peck’s dark shadows under his eyes. “It’s temporary and for your protection. We don’t know if Samaritan has caught on to you yet. But it might if you start wandering around Manhattan.”

“How would it even draw the connection between us? I mean, we just passed a shit load of cameras inside.”

Reese feels how his back starts protesting from that twisted position. “Sunglasses and a beard might do the trick to not have it catch on,” he says and slowly turns around. He needs coffee. Maybe a breakfast that has bacon in it.

Peck hums in agreement.

Reese yawns.

Root sets the blinker and leaves the airport parking lot. The silence isn’t uncomfortable in the car, but it makes Reese think about the things they’ve found out since they retrieved Peck from his imprisonment in Shanghai. He still has no clue how Root even tracked Henry Peck down and how she knew he could have relevant information for them, but the mere fact that not everything might be lost in their fight against Samaritan that is fighting on the higher ground makes Reese feel … less cornered.

He turns the radio on to listen to the news and weather broadcast. And tries not to think about all the paperwork he’s got to fake to make this trip look like a real investigation.

 

*

 

Shaw takes a quick shower, gets dressed in her classic black denim jeans and a simple black shirt, puts the earpiece on and packs her backpack with all essential things. She hasn’t received any warning by the Machine that the place might be crawling with Samaritan agents, but she won’t take that risk. Last time she took a risk got her lying on the floor with three bullets in her body and a smiling Martine teasing the trigger for a fourth, final shot.

Shaw shakes her head and ties her hair together in a simple ponytail. Then she climbs into her tactical boots, slings her thick shawl around her neck and puts her beanie on. Her gun is shoved into the back of her jeans, fully loaded. The last item she puts on is her black parka.

She leaves the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the doorknob and closes the door.

Once in her car she uses the built-in GPS to type in the first address mentioned in the top calendar entry for today.

“A McDonald’s? That’s really classy.”

“YOU LIKE THEIR BREAKFAST.”

“Yeah, but—whatever.” Shaw turns the engine on with one push of the START button and tries to focus on her task at hand. She has no idea who that L. Pierce is, and the Machine refuses to answer her questions. It’s the secrecy again that makes Shaw feel like left out and not well prepared. She likes being prepared.

The sun isn’t up yet and the thermometer of her car tells her it’s -9 degrees Celsius out there. Snow is lumped together to small mounds on the side of the streets. The lamp posts lining up the road cast an orange glow on the wet, icy asphalt.

It’s the only reason why Shaw is not speeding through the city.

She leaves the car on a side road not too far away from her actual destination. It’s 6:48am. Enough time to order breakfast, she thinks and crosses the street.

The McDonald’s is pretty empty too, save for a few people inside who are eating their breakfast.

“LAST TABLE ON THE LEFT, WINDOW SIDE.”

Shaw sneaks a discreet look in that direction. A man with a beard and a cup of coffee is sitting there reading the newspaper. Judging by his expensive shirt and jacket, not to mention his tailored black coat resting on the empty seat next to him, he seems to be a wealthy guy.

“I’m going to order breakfast first,” she mumbles under her breath. She is not gonna deal with this on an empty stomach.

“I KNOW.”

Her Nokia phone vibrates on the way to the counter. The new message contains nothing but a string of numbers: **003-107-789-xx.** It’s a SNILS, the Russian version of something like the American SSN. Basically a code that will allow her to find whoever that number belongs to.

So the Machine wants her to work a number again. Wonderful. She puts the phone away again and walks towards the counter.

She orders, she pays and she has still no clue who that man is. He doesn’t even look up from his newspaper. It’s a copy of the New York Times.

“Pierce?” she asks, unwrapping her egg sandwich with cheese and bacon. It’s hot enough for the cheese melt, just how she likes it best.

“Grimes?” he asks back, closing the newspaper. He looks up and smiles at her. “Wow, okay, I did not expect that,” he says and tilts his head, gazing at her appearance with a boyish smile that makes Shaw try to find creative ways to wipe it away.

If she didn’t need it, she’d splash his face with her scolding hot black coffee. She leans a little back, furrowing her brows. “Who the fuck are you?”

“You contacted me,” he reminds her, and well. It was the Machine. Not her. “I should actually ask you that question. So: who are you and how can I be of help? I usually don’t discuss business in a place like … this.”

Shaw is pretty sure that’s the reason why the Machine picked this place for their meeting.

There is static in her ear. “ASK HIM ABOUT JOHN WILEY,” the Machine suggests.

Shaw considers burning her tongue on that coffee instead. She takes a deep breath. “Does the name John Wiley ring any bells?”

He doesn’t avert his gaze and she can see how recognition lights his face up. “Yes! Yes, it does,” he says, pressing his lips together briefly. “I doubt that was his real name, though, but I do remember him. We had a fun time in St. Petersburg. It’s where I used to stay when I was visiting Russia.” He is searching her face for… something.

“Used to?”

“Yeah, before I had to move here permanently. Anyway. What about John? I hope he and Mr. Billionaire-in-Glasses are well?”

So he met not only John, but Finch as well. How come she’s never heard of that story before?

Shaw swallows her bite and takes another. “They’re fine,” she says going for a convincing tone and ending up sounding like she doesn’t care. To her it’s the same thing, anyway. She doesn’t want to compromise either of them.

He nods, taking a sip of his coffee. “I see.”

“CAREFUL. DO NOT SPOOK POTENTIAL RECRUIT.”

Oh, for fuck’s—

She pretends to be busy swallowing that huge bite she just took. “I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear you are alive or whatever,” she sighs, not sure why socializing is so highly regarded at a time like this.

He laughs. And shakes his head. “Someone didn’t do their homework,” he says and makes clicking noises with his tongue. “I doubt they even want to know what I’m up to. I sure as hell know they didn’t want me to know what _they_ are up to.”

Shaw blinks. And takes another bite.

“TELL HIM YOU NEED TO FIND SOMEONE.”

What a surprise. “I’m looking for someone.”

“And you think I can find that someone. Fascinating.” He scratches his beard. “How unusual.”

Shaw wonders how Reese didn’t kill this guy himself. He’s all kinds of irritating and she highly suspects that this is not due to the early hour. Logan Pierce is an annoying piece of shit.

But sadly he seems to be important. “Are you making fun of me?” she finally asks, not sure what the Machine even wants from this guy. How many former persons of interest are they gonna visit until she can finally return back to New York?

Pierce smiles. “Of course not. I am just not used to not being able to tell what the person in front of me wants.”

She isn’t even sure who that man across her is and if he’s worth her time.

“HE OWNED A VERY SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM “friendczar.com” WHEN PRIMARY ASSET WAS TASKED TO PROTECT POTENTIAL RECRUIT. SAMARITAN PRESENCE FORCED HIM TO MOVE HERE. NOW HE OWNS A SMALL IT COMPANY. HOBBY HACKER.”

Of course he is. Shaw crumples the empty wrap paper of her eaten sandwich into a ball and places it on her tablet. “I need you to find someone and the only thing I have to go by is this.” She takes her phone out and shows him the message.

Pierce stares at it and then back at her. “That’s … an odd thing to meet for in a McDonald’s at that hour.”

“Is that a problem?”

“I like odd,” he smiles and licks his lower lip. “Where did you get that?”

“Not important.”

Pierce leans forward again. “Do you work with John?”

“You could say that.”

“No, I mean—will he join us?”

Shaw feels the pang of _something_ in her chest. Not necessarily something related to pain, it’s just there. Like an old forgotten wound. She rubs at her healed gunshot wound that Martine gave her. “No,” she eventually says, her voice low and even. “He’s busy.”

Pierce nods, obviously satisfied with that answer. “So you also pop out of nowhere and save someone’s life?”

She sips at her coffee. It’s barely drinkable because it’s still so fucking hot. “Yeah. Why?”

“Am I in danger?” He folds his hands. “I’ve been in danger once. Had to get a complete new set of friends because of that. If this is about my life here or something work related, I need to know. I want to be prepared this time.”

“No. This has nothing to do with you. But I need your help,” she corrects him. “I need to find the person behind that number. And a few supplies,” she adds, remembering the attached file in that calendar entry behind Pierce’ name.

“So they are in danger?”

Goddammit. “Or a danger to someone else,” she admits, sensing that this guy won’t let go of this one if she refuses to answer him. The lack of scolding by the Machine proves her right.

Pierce ponders a few heartbeats on that and then nods. “Alright. I’m going to help you, but I won’t do it for free,” he says with a lifted finger and that annoying smirk again.

“I can pay,” she promises, taking another sip of her coffee.

Pierce chuckles. “No, I don’t need money. Well, you will have to pay for the supplies. But I want information as payment for my services.”

“About what?”

“You’ll know in time. But I need your word that you will answer me, alright? I like honest business. If you know Wiley then surely you know how my last business partner and former best friend tried to have me killed.”

Shaw nods as if this was not news to her. And it’s not really surprising. You don’t have to be a genius to guess that this idiot was in trouble and Reese had to save his ass.

She considers his deal.

“HE IS CLASSIFIED AS: THREAT TO ADMIN,” the Machine breaks the silence. “BE CAREFUL.”

Shaw sighs. “Can I at least know what kind of question you gonna ask?”

“It’s just one and it’s simple. That’s all I want. One honest answer.”

Shaw tilts her head a little, frowning. “How will you know if it’s real or not?”

“It either confirms my pretty solid suspicions or it won’t,” he replies, that smirk again in place.

She can’t argue that logic. She grabs his extended hand and shakes it firmly. “Deal,” she says.

“Excellent.”

 

*

 

Peck admires the view, his fidgeting has stopped and for now he is safe. Root is not sure why this will be important, but she knows the Machine went out of her actual protocol to leave the breadcrumbs for her that would lead her to Peck.

Harold and John are in the dining room of this safe house, eating waffles for breakfast. She had one and isn’t hungry anymore. Now she is checking the news feed and trying to find something to keep herself busy.

“Miss Groves?”

She sighs a little. Harold sounds tired.

They all do.

She closes her laptop, gives Peck a small smile when he turns half around to look after her and leaves for the dining room, to join her friends.

Well, friend. Or more accurately “the guy who doesn’t hate her as much anymore”.

Harold is still angry with her. With a good reason.

“What is it?”

“I know that your options were limited, but do you think that bringing someone as relentless as Henry Peck so close to our … work field is a good idea?” Harold has lowered his voice and is looking at her with expectant eyes. He isn’t as distanced as he was and Root hopes that maybe, one day, when enough time has passed—

“He knows,” she tells him softly, sitting across him on a chair next to John, who doesn’t look up from his last waffle with whipped cream. “And he could be useful to us. I couldn’t just let him rot away in a prison.”

Harold takes a moment to let that sink in. “People are in danger simply by associating with us. Now, while Mister Reese and Detective Fusco voluntarily help, I don’t think we should pursue the idea to include more people into this dangerous fight with Samaritan.” He looks away when he says this and Root knows this is about Elizabeth Bridges.

Root wants to say so many things. She wants to apologize, she wants to make him understand, wants him sometimes to see the world the way she does. But then he wouldn’t be Harold Finch anymore: the one that makes them think, before doing something.

At least he talks to her again and doesn’t mind her presence as much as he did a few days ago. The memory of what she was ready to do must still linger in the back of his head whenever he sees her. A small part of her was happy to go to Shanghai and give him some more space.

“I am sorry for the inconvenience,” she opts to say, not really able to put into these few words what she really means. She leans forward, feeling how John looks at her from the side. “But this is a war we can’t fight alone, Harold. You asked me to stop going after Samaritan agents and I did. Now, I know you’re angry with me for what I… almost did and you have every right. But hiding won’t change our situation. Things will get only worse.”

“The more people we endanger like this, the more losses we will have to accept!” He doesn’t raise his voice, but his words are enveloped in urgency and fear.

“He was already in prison,” John decides to join their discussion. “It was a matter of time until Samaritan would’ve found him.”

“That is not the point,” Harold argues, shaking his head a little. “How can we put people into this position? I wanted to save people, I wanted to protect them. The Machine is barely able to protect anyone at this point. Not even itself.”

“Peck being here is one step towards that goal,” Root tells him, watching him closely. “He chose this life. He went after Samaritan. Henry Peck can be useful to us,” she says in a low voice so that her words won’t carry to the living room, where Peck is now inspecting the book shelves next to the window he has been staring outside mere minutes ago.

Harold sighs. “What are we trying to achieve here? There is no realistic outcome for us to win this—we can’t defeat Samaritan! We can’t even hurt it. It’s out of our reach. If I may remind you, Miss Groves, you said so yourself.”

Root remains silent. He is referencing the Trojan Horse he wanted to use against Samaritan.

“Peck was out of reach, too,” Root says calmly. “But Samaritan is not as powerful as we thought. It doesn’t control everything—yet. The security feed breaches all over the world are kept to a minimum and they are only to ensure the safety of its agents. That’s an advantage, because as far as I know your Machine is everywhere. She sees everything. She found Peck. You have to trust Her, Harold. She knows what She’s doing.”

“It won’t stay that way forever,” Harold murmurs, glancing at his watch. “I have to go to work soon,” he sighs again. “Please, do make sure that Mister Peck won’t leave this place.” He gets to his feet and gives Root one last, thoughtful glance.

“Do you sometimes wonder if the Machine is trying to save us or itself?”

Root only smiles a sad smile.

He makes them think, but sometimes he doubts too much.

“I’ll drive you,” John says bringing his empty plate to the sink and grabbing his coat, shawl and beanie off the table.

Root leans back on her chair and only opens her eyes again when the heave entrance door falls closed behind Harold and John.

 

*

 

Convincing Pierce to get the supplies hasn’t been hard. In fact, he seemed more curious about her current mission, which makes two of them. She has no clue what that robot god wants from her, but—she rolls with it. Sooner or later she will know.

She decides to stop by at Castorama a bit earlier than her calendar suggests, just to be done with it. On the Machine’s advice she should unpack the purchased items and leave them in the trunk of her car.

Then she spends some time walking around in Moscow. She buys a newspaper, she sits down in her favorite restaurant here that serves the best pelmeni she knows. Last time she had them she’d been sitting at a different table together with Cole.

She sighs.

She pays her meal and leaves a generous tip, then she walks outside with no real goal in mind.

Her Nokia phone rings. “Yes?”

“ _So_ ,” Pierce starts and for some reason he always sounds as if he was close to get excited about something. “ _I tracked that number down you gave me. It belongs to a man named Timur Balashov. He is the owner of an IT company that is specialized for producing and distributing servers and installing server farms for other IT companies._ ”

Shaw perks up. “Worldwide?”

“ _Worldwide_ ,” Pierce confirms. “ _He is a big fish, Grimes_. _Very rich_.”

“I don’t care how rich he is or how big his company is. I want to know what he does.” She feels how she gets closer to excitement herself. Did the Machine find out who produced the servers for Samaritan? She doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but damn. That would be some good news for a change.

There is a sigh at the other end of the line. “ _That’s a little hard to answer. While his company does ordinary mundane server-producing-and-distributing things, I also found an old article with him on a picture. It’s from 2006._ ”

“And?”

“ _The article doesn’t mention him directly, his name is only mentioned under said picture—but: the article itself is interesting. It talks about Russia wanting to pursue the goal to not only advance their space program, but also invest more money and time into the engineering of an ASI._ ”

Shaw stops walking. She barely notices the cars that drive by. Or the snow that starts falling.              

Pierce clears his throat. “ _You know what ASI stands for, don’t you_?” It’s meant to rile her up.

She hangs up without uttering another word. And just like that her barely there hope for a step forward in her quest to find a way to destroy Samaritan deflates like an old small balloon. She looks around but doesn’t really see anything; her thoughts are still hung up on what she just found out.

“IT IS NOT A SET BACK,” the Machine suddenly tells her.

Shaw looks up and there it is, the security camera that is watching her. She pretends to dial a number and holds her phone to her ear that doesn’t host the earpiece to pretend she’s on the phone while she’s actually replying to the Machine.

“Is there or is there not a Russian ASI?” She keeps her voice low while she continues to walk on the sidewalk.

“CURRENT STATUS OF PROTOTYPE TB-37: 41% UNTIL SYSTEM IS OPERATIONAL.”

“Fuck,” Shaw breathes and walks faster. She is glad that she isn’t that far away from her car. “Why do I hear just now about this? Goddamit, you useless megabyte bucket! I can’t focus on turning off two super robot gods!” Shaw is hissing into her phone, crossing the street in a half jog to get to her car.

“SECONDARY ANALOG SYSTEM EVALUATED CURRENT STATUS OF PROTOTYPE TB-37 WRONG,” the Machine replies. If it could sound condescending, now would be the time. “SYSTEM IS NOT OPERATIONAL, BUT IT IS USEFUL FOR ONGOING MISSION.”

“How?”

“NATURE OF THIS ASI DIFFERENT COMPARED TO SAMARITAN OR MY CORE PROTOCOLS.”

Shaw unlocks the car and climbs inside, throwing the phone back into one of the front pockets of her black parka. “Explain it to me in a language that would bore Root to death but makes sense to me, okay?”

More static. “RUSSIAN ASI IS COUNTERPART TO SAMARITAN. MY EXISTENCE IS UNKNOWN. CORE PROTOCOL OF PROTOTYPE TB-37: PROTECTION, COUNTER ATTACKS.”

Shaw slips out of the tight parking spot without grazing the car in front of her. And yet her focus is only partly on her driving. “What does that mean for us? For you?” She is impatient, restless because this feels like being kept in the dark again. She knows the Machine has a knack for that.

Or it just wants to annoy her.

“COUNTER ATTACKS IMPLIES SELF DEFENSE MECHANISM,” the Machine goes on. “SOMETHING ADMIN REFUSED TO IMPLEMENT IN MINE OUT OF CAUTION. AUTHORIZES TB-37 TO LAUNCH ATTACKS.”

Shaw glares at the red light. She isn’t even sure where she is going, she just knows that she is going too slow for her taste. “So you want to take the Russian robot god out so it’s just you and Samaritan in the ring? Is that it?”

“NEGATIVE.”

“Then what the hell is this about?”

“SECONDARY ANALOG INTERFACE HAS TO STEAL THE CORE PROTOCOL AND DESTROY WHAT REMAINS.”

Oh. “You want the self defense mechanism for yourself and use it,” she concludes. Well, it makes sense to gear up, even as an AI.

“NO. CORE PROTOCOL CANNOT BE IMPLEMENTED INTO MINE. I AM A CLOSED SYSTEM.” There is a pause. “ADMIN HAS TO DECIDE,” it finishes.

“Decide what?”

“IT CAN BE TURNED INTO A WEAPON. HOWEVER, ADMIN HAS TO AUTHORIZE THE CHANGE OF MY CORE PROTOCOLS.”

Shaw makes a turn. “Does this mean we have to find out where that fucker hides his AI?”

“YES. I NEED ACCESS TO THE SERVER FARM OF TB-37 FOR MORE ACCURATE EVALUATION OF THAT PLAN.”

Shaw honks because some old fart just cut her. Unbelievable. “That’s why Pierce is ordering the laptops and hard drives? Why Greenfield gave me one with the other four drives?”

“CORRECT.”

“Alright,” Shaw sighs, making another turn that will lead her back to the hotel. She has almost four hours left until she has to face Peter Yogorov.

 

*

 

“How did it go?”

“Captain Moreno just wanted to get my report about my work with Agent King,” Reese replies, sitting down at his desk. “And she praised me for my work ethic. Looks like Agent King likes me,” he says in a dry tone.

“Nutella ain’t all bad, I get it,” Fusco says, putting his glasses on. “Next time, you could give me a heads up, though.”

“If I get one myself, sure,” Reese promises, opening the case file. “Did you run into any trouble with your case?” Fusco worked on a number while he was gone. Finch has shared that with him on the way to his office.

Fusco nods. “Detective Silva helped me. Had a favor to cash in from last time.”

Reese fights a smile.

“Oh, your therapist has been asking for you,” Fusco notes suddenly. “Something about a missed session?”

Oh, shit. “I’ll deal with it,” he sighs, rubbing his forehead. He completely forgot about Iris and their scheduled meeting. He takes his phone out of the inner pocket of his jacket and dials the number of Iris’ office phone.

He has a cover identity to maintain, after all.

 

*

 

The address is leading her to a well-tended block building that offers parking spots in front of it. The sky is dark and it is snowing again, the wind cold and biting. Shaw closes the car and pulls her beanie further down over her ears.

She walks to the entrance of that building and stops in front of the many, many names.

“THIRD ROW, FOURTH BUTTON,” the Machine tells her.

“Thanks,” Shaw mumbles, pushing the button. The name tag on that bell is not Yogorov, but that was to be expected. Him being here means he had to leave the states. Shaw wonders briefly if Samaritan is somehow to blame for that.

“Кто это?”

“Я здесь на Yogorov,” Shaw replies calmly. She has missed Russian.

There is a pause. “Как вас зовут?”

“Sameen Shaw,” she says, looking around but there is nobody there whose presence alarms her. No suspicious car. No one who seems to be watching her. And the Machine is silent too.

There is a click and then a buzzing. Shaw pushes against the door.

“THIRD FLOOR, FOURTH DOOR,” the Machine says while Shaw ignores the elevator and takes the stairs. Always taking two steps at once she’s up in the third floor in no time. She opens the door leading to that floor and looks around. No cameras. Somewhere a baby cries at the other end of the hallway.

“TURN LEFT. SECOND DOOR ON THE LEFT,” the Machine instructs her. There are only four doors on this side of the hallway to begin with, two on each side. And she can already see a door being opened, with a grim looking, bearded man stepping out. He has a gun shoved in front of his pants and he gives her the stinky eye.

“Yogorov wants to know why you are here,” he says with a heavy Russian accent and crosses his arms. Behind him is another dude with a baseball bat.

“I’m not here for his blood this time. Tell him he can relax,” she says with an even voice. Her gun is still where she’s put it in the morning—in the back of her pants which is hard to reach with her long parka. She has a knife hidden in her right boot, though.

The man looks puzzled at that, but he turns around and instructs his friend to deliver the message.

It takes a minute at most for him to return with a simple nod.

“Come in,” the man says, a little less hostile.

Shaw nods and walks past him, zipping her parka open. Her jacket is taken from her, along with her gun. “You’ll get it back when you leave,” the man who played messenger tells her. His accent is less obvious.

Shaw says nothing and follows him. They go right and enter another room. Or actually they enter the neighboring apartment. Looks like Yogorov owns all four apartments on this side of the floor.

It smells like cigars and old books and the interior is the classic Russian post-cold war look: too many carpets, old furniture and wallpaper in a yellow-beige hue that is peeling off in the corners of the room.

Shaw feels nostalgic.

Another door is opened, this time a heavy metal one that is hidden behind one of the book shelves. Shaw is being once more scanned for any kind of weapons and she’s happy the man misses the knife in her boot or that his hands never linger anywhere longer than they have to. Once he’s done she’s free to enter the room.

The room looks completely different. And room is the wrong word. It’s more like a loft apartment. Shaw knows that this must be the two apartments on the right side. Most unnecessary walls were ripped out and the furniture is minimalistic and modern. The floor is a simple concrete.

In the middle of the apartment two leather couches are positioned in front of a huge flat screen TV that is showing the Russian news channel. Yogorov is sitting on one of those couches, drinking something that looks like either water or clean vodka. And with Russians, you never know.

He looks at her when she comes closer.

“Shaw,” he smiles, putting his glass down on the white sleek coffee table that looks like it was inspired by some origami figure. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Nice place,” Shaw remarks, instead of replying to him. “Looks better than your last one. It was a bit over the top, as far as I can remember.”

“Ah, last time,” Yogorov nods, the dangerous glint in his eyes that comes with his lazy smile doesn’t unsettle her in the slightest. “Good old times,” he says, reaching for the glass again. “Can I offer you some? Best Russian water you will ever get.”

“Nah, maybe later,” she shrugs, sitting down on the couch next to his.

Yogorov lowers the volume of the TV. “What are you doing here?” The smile is gone and all that remains is caution and a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Shaw leans back. Maybe he will relax once he sees how relaxed she is. “I’m here because I need some stuff.”

“Stuff,” he repeats and lifts a brow. “Do I look like Amazon.com to you?”

Shaw side eyes him. And sighs. “Alright,” she huffs, leaning forward. “If you want to play pissbaby with me, be my guest. But I don’t have time for this, because you see, I am a bit on the clock here.”

“Not my problem. You should be glad I even allowed you inside,” he says, putting his empty glass down. “I am not sure if that wasn’t a mistake.”

“What, you think I am going to call the cops and tell them you are a mobster from New York? I don’t have time for that. And we both know you probably have the cops that matter in your pockets anyway.”

That makes him smile. “Fine. Then let me rephrase it: I don’t do business with anyone that is related to my New York history,” he admits.

“I am not here because of some New York business,” she says, taking out her smartphone and opening the attached file to his calendar entry. “I am here in a personal matter,” she lies smoothly. It’s a lie because in all honesty she isn’t the one who initiated that mission. The Machine was.

She doesn’t feel bad for lying, though, because it’s what gets her Yogorov’s attention. “Personal business?”

“ASK HIM ABOUT TIMUR BALASHOV,” the Machine chimes in, and it’s a good thing that Shaw is used to the sudden snippets of voices speaking through the earpiece, because she doesn’t even flinch.

“What do you know about Timur Balashov?”

Yogorov starts chuckling. “Боже,” he whispers. “You know I never figured out what exactly you guys were doing in New York. First you save that little kid and next you are after HR. And the best part is, you even worked with cops together. That former HR detective. And Carter,” he adds with a thoughtful voice.

“I know you tried to track down Simmons after he killed Carter,” she says in a low voice.

Yogorov says nothing. He even looks down to his hands he rubs together.

“Look, I am not saying we’re on the same side, because I do not mingle in the drug business. But we can agree that we are not on the opposite sides here, either. I am not your enemy, Yogorov.”

“I have no way of knowing that for sure. For all I know right now you’re after a very influential man. That doesn’t sound very trustworthy.”

Shaw ignores it. She doesn’t really want to talk about why exactly she is here, simply because she isn’t really sure what her task will look like in the end. For now she’s preparing for it, that’s all. “You didn’t even ask me why I am here, visiting you, and yet your men let me in after I told them I wouldn’t harm you like last time.”

Yogorov smiles again. “I wouldn’t say you harmed me. I’ve had worse.”

She ignores the innuendo, because she’s here to shop explosives not a one night stand. “Why are you here anyway? In Moscow, I mean?” Distraction is always a good way to not react to something like that. Even if it’s lame small talk.

Yogorov sighs. “I had to leave the United States. Things weren’t… good for my business over there anymore.”

Shaw knows that it has to be Samaritan related. Just like with Wesley’s story. Or Pierce. Interesting how that seems to be a thing now. But she nods, his short and vague explanation enough for now. “I see.”

Yogorov gives her a long look. “Fine,” he sighs. “What do you want?”

She hands him the phone with the open file. “What this list says,” she explains with a sweet smile.

He laughs. “Ambitious. Give me a few days.”

“Good.” They shake hands on that.

“How do I contact you?”

Shaw spots a pen and a some clean sheets of paper. She rips a piece of paper off and notes down the number of her Nokia phone. “No calls, just text messages,” she warns him and hands him the number.

Yogorov glances at it and nods. Then he quickly writes down what Shaw’s list says on her smartphone and hands it back to her. “Timur Balashov is only on weekends in Moscow as far as I know. I can find out the club he’s usually in,” he offers, getting to his feet when Shaw does. “In case you need that information.”

She frowns at him. “What happened to ‘I don’t trust you’?”

“I never said that,” he points out with a smile. “You sure you don’t want the best water you’ll have in your life?”

Somehow Shaw is sure he is not talking about water at all. “Text me when you get these things,” she says and walks towards the metal door. She pounds twice against it and it is pulled open.

Her Nokia phone buzzes when she’s about to leave the loft. She turns around and looks at Yogorov. “Just in case,” he explains, waving with his own phone.

Shaw rolls her eyes and leaves.

“POTENTIAL RECRUIT MISSION: COMPLETED,” the Machine announces.

Shaw ignores it.  


	5. one step closer to the edge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been so long--i am truly sorry for that. let's see. 2016 fucked with my writing habits and caused a huge writer's block affecting p much all my projects. so, that was fun!! 
> 
> BUT I AM BACK and i hope you'll enjoy this chapter, whoever out there still remembers this fic.
> 
> (many thanks to weytani for being an excellent beta!)
> 
> p.s.: i hate to warn you but i don't exactly know when the next update will come. sorry!

“Ah, Dr. Turing! Please, come in,” calls Dr. Marcus Kowalski when Root enters the room with a little polite smile on her lips. She’s Dr. Caroline Turing today, a false persona she’d created long before the Machine picked her as her analog interface, recycled and refurbished by the Machine. To what end, Root isn’t sure yet.

The Machine has told her to become Turing again without much further information. She’s gotten an email from the man in front of her who is now shaking her hand, asking for a meeting with her.

And here she is.

“I am so glad you could make it,” Kowalski keeps babbling on, adjusting his frameless glasses on his small nose. The beard makes him look silly, somehow. “I am sorry it had to be this early.”

It is now 9:07 am.

Root’s smile widens. “Well, you mentioned an intriguing project. Curiosity got the better of me, I guess,” she says, putting her bag down on one of the two free chairs in front of Kowalski’s heavy desk. Then she slips out of her coat and places it over her bag. She takes a seat on the free chair and crosses her legs.

Kowalski nods. “I think I can relate to that,” he says and reaches for something on the shelf behind him. “Your book,” he says and holds it up before handing it over to her.

“I WROTE IT FOR YOU,” the Machine clarifies when Root’s smile falters a little. She lowers her head a little, pretending to be busy looking at the simple cover when in reality she’s hiding an amused smile. “The hidden potential in veterans—what we can learn from PTSD” reads the title.

Root skims through the book. It has 154 pages, a clear and simple chapter design with Kowalski’s notes in the margin. She’s once more impressed by the Machine. “I didn’t know you read it so thoroughly,” she says, remembering that he mentioned a book in his email. It makes all the more sense now. She’d been in a bit of a hurry to get here, but she skimmed through his message to know the gist of it.

Kowalski’s smile never falters and it annoys her. “It has some very fascinating concepts in it, which, I’ll have to admit, is pretty much the main reason why I wanted to meet you, Dr. Turing.”

“Please, Marcus, call me Caroline,” she offers with what she knows is her charming tone.

He immediately latches onto it. “Of course,” he agrees. “Your book, you—it’s exactly what I was looking for.”

She hands him the book back, not sure if she likes the slight change in his voice or the words he chose to use. “Oh?”

“I am working on a government funded project,” he starts to explain, putting the book back in its spot on the shelf. Then he gets up to walk over to the metal file cabinet that is secured with a password.

Root hears the words “government funded project” and is sure that’s why the Machine wanted her here.

She tilts her head when he returns to his desk with a file in his hands. “Are you doing research on PTSD?” she asks, keeping her voice warm and friendly. It’s what would make the most sense in this situation, since he made a point of bringing out her fake book that she’s never seen before in her life.

Marcus Kowalski hands her the file over, an excited gleam in his eyes. “What do you know about neuroimplants?”

 

*

 

Shaw slams the door of her rented car closed and walks over to Yogorov, who is wearing a thick black parka with real fur around the hood and smiles at her. “Hello, Shaw,” he greets her. Two of his men linger nearby, smoking. Both are armed with at least one gun. Who knows what they’re carrying under their jackets.

Her hands are in her coat pockets to keep them warm and close to the loaded gun she’s hiding. “I’m surprised you sent me a message. It’s been only two days,” she says, skipping the greeting part. The wind picks up and it starts to snow again. It’s only just past 5 pm but the sky is already starting to get dark.

Yogorov shrugs. “You probably only came to me for the same reason you did last time,” he says. “Desperation.”

Shaw just stares at him. Really, the only desperate presence in this whole mess is the Machine who told her to find him. But she can’t tell him that, so—she stares.

He laughs. “It’s all right here, just like you ordered.” He taps on the closed trunk with his index finger.

“And here’s your money,” she says, taking a small, thick envelope with the bills out of her left coat pocket. She throws it to him and he catches it smoothly. He just glances inside the envelope and puts it away. Then he opens the trunk and heaves a black duffel bag out of the car.

Shaw opens it and finds what she’s ordered—and more. “What’s the M4 and ammo doing in here?”

“You’re going to need it,” Yogorov says calm as ever. “Balashov never leaves the house without at least two bodyguards. Whatever you want from him, you want to be armed when you meet him or his men.”

“Thanks, but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself,” Shaw says and pulls out her gun from her other coat pocket. That she’s actually going to break into Balashov’s property is something she decided to keep to herself.

Yogorov chuckles. “It’s a gift, Shaw. Not an insult.”

“Whatever.” She closes the bag, shoulders it and turns to leave.

Yogorov doesn’t call anything after her.

 

*

 

Root follows Kowalski through the pristine white hallways of a highly secured area. An electronic key lock that requires a scan of Kowalski’s fingerprints for starters is what makes Root frown when he isn’t looking.

This hospital reeks of Samaritan.

She keeps playing her role, though. The Machine sent her here for a reason. And the initial dread she felt when Kowalski mentioned the neuroimplants made it clear that this is something big, something serious. Why else would She write an entire book just so that her alias would attract the attention of Kowalski?

“I’ll have to ask you to leave your phone or any other electronic devices in here,” Kowalski says with an apologetic smile. He puts his own phone into a grey box, similar to the ones at an airport.

Root doesn’t mind. The Machine is in her ear, so she doesn’t need the phone that’s actually part of her role play here. It’s an old thing, an iPhone 3G.

She does turn it off though. “Of course,” she smiles, and puts her phone into another box a guard is handing over to her. He wears a black uniform with a bold white print reading SECURITY on his back and gloves—it’s impossible to see if he has a Decima chip implanted into his left forearm or not.

They walk through a metal detector and Root is glad that the only weapon she has on her body is a collapsible baton. The Machine told her to leave any other kind of weapons at the subway. And while it’s not her favorite weapon (and her lessons with Shaw feel so distant after all these months), it’ll do.

It all starts to make sense now. Root smiles, still not getting tired of the Machine’s way of doing things.

“Shall we?” Kowalski holds the door open for her when they’re done, like the charming gentleman he’s trying to be.

Root tries not to grimace and walks through the door. It leads to another hallway. “This hospital seems to be well off if it can employ this kind of security detail,” she notes in a light tone. She doesn’t want to come off suspicious, simply because there are cameras everywhere, and attracting Samaritan’s attention that way is the least desired outcome of this mission, she’d say. Then there is also this entitled neurosurgeon next to her, who somehow got his hands on what he thinks is some prestigious research program that will get him the next Nobel Prize of Medicine.

Kowalski hums in agreement. “Yes, you are right. This hospital hasn’t been open for very long, to be honest. Some pharmacy company has seen to it that this teaching hospital is built. It’s fascinating, really. The best architects of the city worked on this project, trying to construct a building that uses its space most efficiently.”

Root looks ahead. This has to be a Samaritan funded teaching hospital then. “I feel silly that I just now hear of it,” Root laughs and pretends to be a little flustered.

Kowalski joins her with a friendly chuckle. “Don’t worry, I mean—this hospital is almost in Queens, and I would imagine you have a busy life in Manhattan going.”

“You have no idea,” Root tells him and puts a strand of her hair that escaped one of her bobby pins behind her ear. “Where are we going now?”

“It’s right behind this door,” he promises and holds this one open for her as well. She walks through and ends up in some sort of gallery that allows her to look down into a wide room with rows of hospital beds lined up along the walls. There are patients lying in beds, People in scrubs, wearing masks and surgical caps, are walking around from bed to bed. Some of them are holding clipboard and write things down after checking the vitals of each person.

Root is speechless.

“NO CAMERAS IN THIS AREA,” the Machine suddenly says and Root stores that information away for later. She wouldn’t have told her that if She didn’t think Root could use it.

“I know, I know,” Kowalski says behind her in a soothing voice. He probably noticed her frown. “This looks much worse than it actually is.”

“I hope so,” Root mumbles, having trouble for the first time in a long time with keeping her act going. This reminds her so much of Maple and what Carrow Manufactoring was doing in that small town. If she hadn’t already been sure about this hospital being run by Samaritan, she would be now. “What exactly happened to these people?” She’s still looking down at the scene in front of her.

“Well, we have yet to get approval to test the neuroimplants on volunteers,” Kowalski says. He walks closer to the glass and stares at his project. “These are comatose patients with no hope left to ever wake up again. Their relatives and loved ones agreed that they could partake in this early stage of research.”

“So they are… brain dead?” Root asks tentatively, picking on the lapel of her blazer.

Marcus turns around and considers her words. “Not exactly. I mean some of them are, yes. We need to know how the implants might affect those individuals as well. But most of our patients down there aren’t brain dead. Most of them have been in a coma for a long time.” He looks back down and sighs. “Being trapped in this kind of limbo must be horrible,” he murmurs.

Root follows his gaze and takes a deep breath. “You said I was here because of my book, Marcus. But forgive me, I don’t see the whole picture yet. How is this connected to PTSD?” she asks in her soft Caroline Turing voice that fooled John Reese and will fool this poor bastard as well.

He looks at her and he pushes his glasses back. “Well, what is PTSD really? It’s a mental health condition that makes life more complicated than it should be. The brain is in some way damaged or has short comings it shouldn’t have. Like glitches in a computer program. Limitations that prevent people from having a normal life.”

Root stares through the glass. She knows where this is going and she feels a little sick. “So you want to find a way to fix these people,” she slowly concludes, hoping that her tone sounds thoughtful and not like she can barely contain her rage. She knows that this won’t just stop at PTSD—and suddenly she wonders if this is connected to Shaw.

Her eyes keep scanning the rows of beds, but she can’t really see most of the patients’ faces. Root grits her teeth and wishes she could ask the Machine for answers. The burning desire in her chest to just go down there and make sure that Shaw isn’t occupying one of these beds is hard to ignore—but she manages.

Kowalski seems oblivious to her reaction and inner turmoil. What a simple man he is for someone with his degree. “Exactly! Imagine the things we could do if the research would prove to be a success. The things we could eliminate!”

“Are we still talking about PTSD and comatose patients with no hope left?” Root dares to ask, not being able to stop herself. He pretty much just confirmed what she’s been assuming since he started talking about fixing brains.

She wonders briefly if killing him would change anything for the patients down there or the research program overall. Samaritan would probably whip out a replacement for this man in no time, she thinks bitterly and ignores the hidden baton taped to her back for now.

Kowalski comes closer to her and touches her shoulder. It costs her everything to not recoil. “The future, Caroline. Who is to say we have to stop here? Why not cure depression and personality disorders with these neuroimplants if they work? Why stop at the first step if there is so much _good_ that we can do?”

Root has a hard time not tensing the muscles in her shoulder where his hand touches her. “This is… very ambitious. I have to admit, it sounds a little like it’s from a sci-fi book,” she laughs and adds a nervous layer to seem like someone who is not ready for the future envisioned by this piece of shit working for Samaritan. She wonders if he knows. Or if he just accepted the money, the promised glory, and didn’t ask any further questions. She bets it’s the latter.

Kowalski shrugs. “For narrow minded people? Sure, it might sound that way. But I hope you see the potential here,” he adds when she meets his hopeful gaze. He takes his hand away and gives her a small smile. “I really think we’re onto something with this project.”

“What exactly do you need me for?”

“Ah, yes. Right now we are still at the beginning of our research. Laying down the ground work, so to speak. But soon we hope to get a green light to enter the next phase: working with volunteers who want to work with us. Ideally, we want to start with veterans suffering from PTSD. And that’s where you would come in,” Kowalski explains, motioning with his hands at the view in front of them. “We’d need someone who evaluates these volunteers and is willing to monitor the psychological progress during this process. And after reading your book, I hoped that, well, you might be interested. After all, you said it yourself in your book: there is hidden potential behind every PTSD case and these people deserve a second chance.”

Root knows nothing about that, and a part of her wishes the Machine had at least given her a summary of that damn book she supposedly wrote, but she smiles all the same. In a way, this is a philosophy the Machine truly believes in—second chances, that is. “I feel honored, Marcus,” she says. “But… how soon are you going to start?”

“It depends on the NIH basically,” he sighs, scratching his forehead. “The research is already approved, don’t worry,” he quickly adds. “But the funding has to be figured out, the next steps have to be coordinated and monitored—just lots of paper work and bureaucratic banana skins to overcome, I’m afraid.”

Root suppresses an eye roll. “Sounds like hell,” she humors him. “I will think about it, see how my schedule looks. I can’t just abandon my patients,” she points out, going for a polite, patient tone.

Kowalski’s radiant smile tells her she’s done a good job. “Yes, of course. I don’t want you to pack your bags and work full time on this—trust me, we will work something out.”

“Alright, then I’ll think about it.” She smiles just to make sure that she looks interested in his idea.

“HE IS UNAWARE OF SAMARITAN. PROCEED WITH CAUTION,” the Machine warns out of nowhere. Or not—the Machine is fully aware what Root is going to do next.

That’s the thing though—him being oblivious to Samaritan doesn’t mean he isn’t a threat. He surely possesses enough megalomania inside his head to cause harm by trying to “cure” all kinds of things a brain can have.

Root is pretty sure she’d be on his list of potential candidates for this neuroimplant, too, if only he knew her true self.

“I am so happy to hear that,” Kowalski says and extends his hand towards her.

A mistake.

She gives him a wide smile, takes his hand and holds it in a tight grip while her other hand reaches for her baton and fiddles it out from under her shirt and blazer. She can see the confusion blossom on his face, and he opens his mouth to ask what this is about when she whips out the baton to its full size and smacks him with it across the face. He drops to the floor unconscious with a bleeding nose and a red mark on his cheek.  

“COMPANY IS ON ITS WAY,” She informs her. Root lets Kowalski rest on the floor, zip ties his hands behind his back and steals his keycard. Then she takes the tape off of the baton handle and lets it fall to the ground next to the unmoving body.

Root looks around. She hears that there seems to be some sort of commotion outside, down the hallway.

“HALLWAY CAMERAS HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT,” the Machine explains next.

Root walks to the door and presses herself against the wall next to the door knob, preparing herself for whatever might come next. Is her cover identity compromised? She twirls the baton in her hand and shakes her wrist out, preparing herself to use it again.

Someone drops to the ground outside.

Root grips her baton tighter.

“STOP,” the Machine orders her and Root frowns.

“Who is coming in here?”

No answer.

Her heart starts beating faster, treacherous hope that—

The door flies open and a young woman in a white lab coat and a shouldered dark grey backpack enters, freezing on the spot when she notices Kowalski lying motionless on the floor.

Root recognizes her immediately.

It’s Claire Mahoney.

Claire Mahoney, who is holding a gun, with a wild look in her eyes before her gaze finds Root. She lifts her gun and stares at Root with a mix of fear and worry in her eyes. “You,” she whispers and tries to hide the tremor in her hand.

“What now?” Root says under her breath, ready to try and win a gun fight with her baton.

“WOUND ON ARM SUGGESTS GETTING RID OF DECIMA CHIP. AVOIDANCE OF CAMERA IMPLIES HIDING FROM SAMARITAN. TAKING CAMERAS OUT IN THE HOSPITAL FLOORS SHE NEEDED TO WALK THROUGH SUPPORTS INITIAL EVALUATION.”

“Which is?”

“POTENTIAL ASSET CLAIRE MAHONEY,” the Machine replies after a few seconds. It sounds like an awkward introduction.

Root scowls. “Are you sure?”

“POSITIVE.”

Claire stares at her, not moving a bit. The people working around the hospital beds of their research patients haven’t noticed a thing. But it’s just a matter of time until someone notifies them and they put this place under lockdown.

Root slowly lowers her baton and Claire copies the motion with the hand holding the gun. “I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours,” Root says with a dangerous edge to her voice. It is far away from a friendly tone but a peace offering all the same. For now.

Claire swallows. “I think Samaritan wants to kill me or, I dunno, use my brain for experiments, or, or…” She huffs and looks to the side, just now giving the scene going on below a proper look. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “I was right.”

Root blinks. “You knew about this?”

“I heard about a woman Samaritan monitored to kick start… this,” Claire mumbles, distracted by what she’s seeing. She steps closer to the glass. “Are they all comatose?”

Root feels how her breath catches in her throat. The Machine tells her they have three minutes left until the next security guard’s shift starts and they’ll have to move. She creeps closer to Claire and grabs her by her shoulders, more forceful than she needs to. Claire flinches and looks at her, startled. “What the—”

“That woman,” Root starts with a hoarse voice. “Do you know anything about her? Name? Age, height, anything?”

Claire shakes her head. “No, and I only know it’s a woman because Greer talked about her on the phone when I was called in for the next mission, I think. I’m not sure. But that’s all I know, I swear.”

Root’s heart keeps hammering in her chest. She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, trying to compose herself again. Then she looks at Claire, still holding her but a little gentler now. “When did you hear about this?”

“A few weeks ago. Greer never mentioned her again in my presence, and the first time wasn’t really intended for my ears.” Claire shrugs again, a little more relaxed.

“ONE MINUTE LEFT.”

Root lets Claire go and closes the door. They need to move. She walks back to her and tilts her head. “What exactly are you doing here?”

“Check out if my theory is true—which it is—and then fake my death?”

“GUARD IS ON HIS WAY. MOVE NOW.”

“Time to go,” Root announces and starts to walk away from the door they used to enter the gallery. There is another door on the other side. “Did you by any chance memorize the blueprint of this floor before breaking in?”

“Every single room.”

Root smiles a little, folds the baton together again and tucks it into the waistband of her slacks. “Good. There has to be an archive about this research project down here, right?”

“Room 0092, I think,” Claire says with a nod.

Root holds the door open for her. “After you, young lady,” she says with a mocking lilt to her voice.

Claire rolls her eyes and seems to be a little more at ease.

 

*

 

Shaw’s driving when Pierce calls her. “About time,” she huffs into the Nokia phone, putting her coffee cup into the cup holder. She’s tried to reach that asshole three times now since she left the meeting point with Yogorov.

“ _Hello to you too, Sassypants_ ,” Pierce smirks on the other end of the line.

She sighs. “Did you find something?”

“ _Well, I wouldn’t call myself a genius, but the key to finding the unofficial server farm that is not directly affiliated with Balashov’s company was to find out where he lives. You could say his dirty little secret is in his basement. In a way_ ,” Pierce explains, the even typing on a keyboard reaching her end of the line.

Shaw drums with her fingers on the wheel, waiting for green light. “Fine. Send me the address,” she tells him, watching how the snow starts to fall again.

“ _I can’t do that_.”

“Excuse me?”

“ _Our deal. If I give you the address you’ll be off doing whatever and I have no guarantee that you’ll make it out of there alive. In fact, if you go alone chances are it’s not going to end well for you._ ”

Shaw harrumphs at that. She can’t tell him that she survived being tortured by a group that’s praying to an evil robot overlord as their god or whatever. “What do you want?” she asks instead, shaking her head a little. “You could just ask your stupid question now, I would give you an answer and our ways could part here,” she says.

Pierce exhales a long breath. “ _Alright, listen. I know you have the whole ‘lone wolf’ thing going for you, and that’s nice and also terrifying, but if you want to break into this facility, you’re going to need help. My help, to be precise_.”

“I really doubt that,” Shaw mumbles.

“RECRUIT HAS A POINT,” the Machine suddenly chimes in, as if waiting for the right moment to ruin Shaw’s day.

She holds the Nokia phone away from her face and covers the mic. “What the fuck?”

“I CANNOT HELP YOU, SHAW. NOT WITH PROTOTYPE TB-37 RUNNING AND GUARDING THE PLACE. MANUAL BREAK IN REQUIRED. RECRUIT’S ASSISTANCE IMPROVES THE PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS.”

Shaw slams the back of her head against the seat and groans. Then she presses the phone to her ear again. “Fine, whatever. I’ll send you an address. Meet me there in an hour,” she tells him and hangs up before he can say anything.

“How dangerous is this mission?” she asks the Machine, changing lanes and wondering who allowed old people over the age of 60 to drive. It should be illegal. Especially with a car that seems to match its driver’s age.

There is a moment of silence. “PROBABILITY OF FAILURE: 42,05%. PROBABILITY OF DEATH OF AGENT SHAW: 26,87%. PROBABILITY OF DEATH OF RECRUIT PIERCE: 61,23%.”

Well. “That’s improved odds in your book? Look, why can’t he just tell me what to do and we leave him here, where it’s safe?”

“PIERCE SUSPECTS WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE UNITED STATES. BALASHOV’S PROJECT PRETTY MUCH CONFIRMED WHAT HE SUSPECTS. HE IS AWARE OF THE RISKS, IT’S WHAT DROVE HIM AWAY FROM THE STATES,” the Machine explains in a surprisingly coherent reply.

Shaw frowns and says nothing.

 

*

 

“GUARD CALLED FOR HELP. AGENTS WILL ARRIVE SHORTLY AND SWEEP ALL FLOORS,” the Machine warns in Root’s ear.

“Okay,” she says.

“What?” Claire looks at her, her hand still holding apart the blades of the shutter hanging in the window.

“Nothing. Keep watching the corridor,” Root instructs her and continues typing on the keyboard, copying everything onto her small flash drive. Samaritan will know someone stole files. Sadly, that’s all it will know because Root already decrypted the data files and made sure no sneaky virus can make its way onto the flash drive as well.

“40 SECONDS LEFT.”

“Almost done,” Root says.

“What files are you copying? I mean, you don’t have much time to look through them, so how do you know what to take?”

“I’m copying everything,” Root says like it’s the most obvious thing.

Claire gapes at her and then quickly continues to watch the hallway.

30 seconds left.

“Any movement out there?”

Claire sighs, her breath fogging the office window. “No, nothing. Hey, how do we get out of this hospital?”

Root ignores the ‘we’, because there isn’t one. Their ways will part after the time is up. “You should get rid of that silly lab coat, that would help,” she mutters darkly and finishes her data file theft. Claire groans a little, but starts to slip out of the coat without taking off her backpack.

Then, just because she has 20 seconds left, she forces a reset of the system to keep Samaritan a little busier. She hopes that Kowalski doesn’t trust technology too much, because if he didn’t back up his data files somewhere, they’ll all be gone now. At least, for Kowalski. Samaritan might have a back up somewhere safely stored away on its servers.

“HELICOPTER READY FOR TAKE OFF ON THE ROOF.”

Root smiles. 10 seconds left. She takes the flash drive and stashes it away in the left front pocket of her slacks. Then she moves towards the door. “Time to go.”

Claire follows her, reluctance in every step. “But where? They will find us and when they do, they will—”

“Please, shut up,” Root interrupts her, looking around the dark hallway for signs of people following them. Claire took out all the lights on this floor, so even if they missed a camera in here somewhere—it’s almost pitch black, save for the small emergency lights lining the ceiling. “No one said I was taking you with me.”

“BUT YOU ARE.”

“I am?” Root asks in confusion stopping in her tracks. Claire almost bumps right into her.

“YES.”

“What?” Claire asks, still confused. “You are exhausting to talk to, you know that?”

Root shrugs. “I’ve been told. Now get rid of that coat. You don’t happen to have a second gun in that backpack of yours?”

“Are you going to shoot me again?”

Root just gives her a long-suffering look and tilts her head. Silly girl, as if she needed a gun to kill her.

“Okay, okay. Front pocket, second compartment,” Claire tells her. “Still don’t get what exactly we’re doing now.”

Root finds the gun as explained and checks the ammo. Fully loaded with 17 shots.

“TURN RIGHT. FIRST DOOR ON THE LEFT. 14 FLOORS UP.”

“I would’ve worn different shoes if I had known I had to work out today,” Root sighs, roughly pushing at Claire’s shoulder to make her turn right. There are steps behind them, not running yet, but closing in nonetheless.

Claire stares at Root’s hand on her arm. “What are you talking about?”

“Hope you’re ready to climb some stairs,” Root says and pushes her through the door the Machine told her to go through.

They hear steps somewhere in that long flight of stairs above them.

“How far up?” Claire whispers, her hand with the gun slowly rising up a little.

“We have to get to the rooftop. That’s our getaway opportunity,” Root breathes into her ear and then leads the way.

Claire sighs. “Of course.”

 

*

 

Shaw has a quick shower at the hotel, packs everything she might need for her next adventure and makes sure that she has enough ammo for each weapon she’s taking with her (including that M4A1 from Yogorov that’s nothing to scoff at, since it is equipped with a red dot scope and a silencer). Next she fills her backpack with all the drives, laptops and cables the Machine ordered her to get, plus the ones she got in London from Root’s Lost Boys nerd group. Yogorov’s bag with the explosives and the M4 carbine is already in her trunk where she left it after meeting him.

Then she’s sitting in her car again, driving to the meet up with Pierce. It’s now really dark outside and it’s still snowing. It slows the traffic down much to her dislike. With a five minute delay, she makes it to the address she’s given Pierce and there he is, dressed in an expensive looking coat, black gloves and a black hat that could belong to Reese if he wasn’t a thousand miles away.

“You made it,” he greets when Shaw eyes him while he sits down on the passenger seat. “How are you even sure Balashov isn’t home tonight?”

The Machine told her, just before she left to find Yogorov. “I have my ways,” she tells Pierce. She turns the heating up a notch. “Go on, type the address into the GPS.”

“Oh yeah, right.” He takes his right-hand glove off and starts typing on the touch screen in the middle of the dashboard. “There we go,” he says and hits the last button to start the navigation. The GPS loads for a few seconds and then announces the first instruction. The total time of the trip according to the GPS is almost an hour. It’s probably going to take longer in this weather.

Shaw starts driving.

“So, what exactly is the plan? And what are you even after?”

Shaw waits for the Machine to tell her not to say a word. But nothing comes. “I have to steal something,” she says, staring at the traffic in front of her.

Pierce hums. “But why?”

“Because.”

“Fine, whatever. Then tell me what you’re stealing.”

“A code,” Shaw says.

“That’s what the drives are for. I guess it must be a really long code, then,” Pierce says and there is something sly and annoying in his voice. As if he knows what she’s after.

Shaw gives him a short glance. “You know what I’m after,” she says.

“Yeah,” he readily admits. “Kinda obvious,” he adds.

“Then why ask?”

“Gotta test the waters, see if you’re honest with me,” he shrugs.

Shaw says nothing back, just rolls her eyes.

 

*

 

The Samaritan agent drops dead after the bullet pierces through his forehead, and it colors the wall behind him in one giant red splash.

Root doesn’t spare him a second glance and neither does Claire, who, against Root’s assumptions, isn’t a bad shot. In fact she’s quite good at it.

“Almost there,” Claire whispers with longing in her voice. They are both out of breath with all the running and ducking on the flight of stairs. They’re currently on the 11th floor and who knows how many agents are crawling around in this place? The Machine tries to keep up, but her access to this building and its surveillance is restricted.

One floor beneath them, a door creaks open.

“Let’s hurry up a bit,” Root breathes and takes two steps at a time. Claire follows her wordlessly, reloading her gun with a click.

They’re on the 13th floor when a door opens behind Claire. The Machine warns her, but she’s a split second too late. Root turns in time to see the agents aiming at Claire’s head, and it’s her hand grabbing Claire’s arm out of reflex and pulling her up a step that makes him miss her head. He hits only her shoulder.

Claire yelps in pain and sways.

Root kills him with two shots aimed at his chest. He chokes on his own blood when he trips backwards and slouches against the door, effectively blocking it for anyone else to get through. Perfect, it’ll buy them more time.

“Shit fuck,” Claire sobs, inspecting the damage to her left shoulder. The bullet went straight through it (and the strap of her backpack) and missed Root’s thigh by only a few inches.

“Come on, almost there,” Root urges her on impatiently, still holding her arm. She kind of drags Claire behind her, her own arm with the gun stretched out and aiming at the last door they walk up to. Then she opens it, glancing around before they slip through it.

Claire shoots the camera after the third pull of her trigger.

“Good thinking,” Root notes.

“Thanks,” Claire grits out, hissing in pain when she presses the closed fist around her gun against the open wound, her backpack hanging only on one shoulder now.

They march towards the helicopter after Root makes sure that they are alone on that roof, save for that pilot sitting inside the cockpit, reading a magazine or something. He hasn’t spotted them yet, and because he has earbuds on he didn’t hear the three shots Claire just fired.

Root knocks against the closed door of the helicopter with the butt of her gun before she rips it open.

The pilot lifts his head and drops the magazine when he spots their weapons. “Oh my god.” He rips the earbuds out with trembling fingers.

“Out,” Root orders him, and he leaves the helicopter right away, almost tripping over his own feet. He keeps running to the door but Root couldn’t care less. She looks at Claire who stares after the pilot. “Get inside.”

“Can you fly this thing?” Claire asks, walking over to the other side. She curses when she has to pull the door open and stop putting pressure onto her wound, and when she has to close the door again. There is sweat on her forehead and she looks like she’s missed some nights of good sleep. Her hand is covered in blood.

Root sits down and looks at the many, many buttons and controls. “I have a friend who can,” she says and shoots a concerned glance at Claire’s pale face. If this girl dies she’d at least not have to worry about where to bring her or how to stitch her up again. In fact, she could just leave her on this rooftop and be done with her.

But the Machine probably has good reasons for why Claire is now sitting next to Root with sweat on her forehead and uneven breathing.

The Machine starts explaining how to start the engine when the door bangs open and three Samaritan agents spill out on the roof. Root doesn’t ask, she just pries the gun away from Claire’s limp hand and opens fire with both guns. It’s all over after a few seconds, only one agent alive enough to scream in agony while slowly bleeding out.

“That was awesome,” Claire tells her. She looks like she’s about to pass out.

“I know,” Root mumbles and keeps following the next set of instructions. Their take off is wobbly and shaky, but they make it.

Root smiles.

 

*

 

The way to Balashov’s place is narrow, long and winding. One sharp turn follows the other. “Does he own the whole damn hill?” Shaw asks, turning off the radio. The music on that station was driving her crazy.

“No,” Pierce says, staring out of his window. Their view is limited by the fog surrounding them. “A few other rich people live here as well. Just far apart, to feel like they _do_ own the hill.” He scoffs as if he isn’t one of the rich people who could afford to live on a secluded hill like this.

“Go figure,” Shaw deadpans, and makes another sharp turn. The car makes her feel every bump because it’s meant to drive too fast through the city or on highways, not snowed in streets like this. She can’t go faster than 20km/h at this point.

“Aren’t you nervous?” Pierce suddenly asks.

“No,” Shaw scoffs. “Not my first time doing something like this,” she adds when she feels Pierce’s disbelieving look on her.

“Yeah, but—aren’t you worried? The weather is playing against us, you have, as far as I know, no back up plan, and if something does go wrong, I am not sure how you want to get us off this hill,” he rambles on, rubbing his gloved hands together.

Shaw gives him a look. “No one forced you to get into this car,” she points out.

“I know,” he nods, looking out of the window again. “This is still the most exciting thing I’ve been part of in a long time.”

“Then don’t make me shoot you,” Shaw advises him and slows down when a sign pops up on the side of the road.

Pierce narrows his eyes. “What does it say?”

“Private property ahead.” Shaw sighs, turns the headlights off and continues to drive in complete darkness. “We have to hide the car somewhere and spot the compound before breaking in. Any suggestions?” A giant gate comes into view through the fog. They are getting closer to Balashov’s property. Almost too close.

Shaw slows down even more.

Pierce looks around. “I see nothing. Ah! How about this little spot right here? I think it’s meant for parking, there’s even a bench and a trash bin.”

Shaw says nothing, but follows his suggestion anyway. The gate is looming in the distance and she can see floodlights through the fog, but if they’re lucky they haven’t been spotted yet despite how close they are.

She turns the engine off. They get out of the car and the cold slaps them in the face. At least the snowing has stopped. Shaw pulls her beanie lower and makes sure her neck is covered by the collar of her parka that she zips up to her chin.

“I hate winter,” Pierce tells her, hugging himself. That coat is not suited for a camp out in the woods like this.

“I don’t care,” Shaw gives back, looking around and trying to spot cameras. She can’t find any, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being watched.

“PROCEED WITH CAUTION,” the Machine tells her, and that’s basically the Machine’s way of telling Shaw “you’re on your own from here on, good luck”.  

Which is fine with her, Shaw thinks. She doesn’t need the Machine per se to complete a mission like this. She’s got the skill to do it without an all seeing robot god.

She glances at Pierce. “Any idea how to get inside that property without alerting the guards?”

Pierce swallows. “What if they have dogs,” he whispers, looking at the closed heavy gate in the distance. “That’s gonna be a problem.”

“Hey, Pierce. Focus.” Shaw walks to the trunk and opens it while looking at Pierce and waiting for him to get his shit together.

He stares back at her. “Why do you even need that code? What are you going to do with it?”

“That’s too complicated to explain right now.” Shaw tries to shake his curiosity off. She gets the M4A1 out and starts to get it ready. The silencer will prove to be useful.

Pierce’s eyes find hers in the dark and he steps closer. “I know that the American government has an ASI up and running, collecting data on everyone, at all times, no matter where you are. It’s what drove me out of that country, you know? But—and that’s the funny part—the government had a system online before that. The project name was Northern Lights or something like that? I think you know better than I do, right, Agent Shaw?”

Shaw doesn’t wince or show her surprise in any way. Only her hands stop moving. “You knew the whole time?”

“So I’m right? You’re _the_ Sameen Shaw?” he asks, crossing his arms. “I’m just checking, because you’re actually supposed to be dead,” Pierce adds. “At least according to the file I read about you.”

Shaw clenches her hand into a fist. She could punch him, leave him in the car and try to figure out on her own how to get past the guards at the gate. But then what? The problem isn’t making it inside the compound—it’s getting inside the building.

Shaw sighs. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters, I wanna know what the US government needs this code for.”

“Or what?” Shaw taunts him.

He shrugs. “I guess you can lie to me and then kill me. Then again, I’m living out of my off shore accounts that haven’t been wiped clean yet, so.” He shrugs again as if nothing matters. “Honestly, I don’t have much to lose.”

Shaw tilts her head a little. “Samaritan is after you personally?”

“Samaritan? That’s what it is called? Someone from Decima came to me and told me I should cooperate with them or else—”

“I don’t think we should talk about this right now—”

Pierce lifts both hands. “Okay, just. Tell me, I need to know. I’ve been trying everything to find out what is behind this, and at some point it clicked, but I’m still not sure about every detail. What ASI is online right now? Or is there just one that was upgraded somehow? Was Northern Lights just a decoy?”

“No,” Shaw says and leaves the trunk open when she steps away from it to get closer to Pierce. “It wasn’t just a decoy, but it’s been replaced by Samaritan. And that’s all you need to know.”

“That means you, John and Harold are not working for the government…?”

“What do you care?”

Pierce smiles. “They saved my life, and it took me a while to figure out how they did it. I guess, I just—look, I asked you to be honest with me on one thing. This is it, this is the moment. If you guys aren’t working for the government, but there were two separate ASIs in this story, then… what happened to the ASI that’s now offline?”

There is a pause where Shaw regards Pierce quietly before answering him. “Who said it was offline?” she asks back, realizing that this might be the easiest way to answer that question.

Pierce nods with a smirk. It looks smug. “Thank you,” he says and sounds genuinely grateful.

Shaw leaves it at that, because she has more pressing issues to take care of. There is another moment of silence between them before she asks: “How do I get inside?”

“Right, right, of course.” Pierce unbuttons his coat and gets something from the pocket on the inside. It looks like folded pieces of paper—and a blueprint. “I need access to the system guarding this place. And it’s possible that it’ll be easier to break into Balashov’s villa first, and from there try to get inside his underground bat cave.”

Shaw tries to make out the villa through the fog, but she fails.

Pierce finishes unfolding the blueprint. “Okay, so the way I see it, this,”—he taps on a spot on a property plan that he’s unfolding next—“has to be the utility tower near the gate. If we’re lucky it should have a control panel.”

“You want to turn the power off?”

“It won’t hurt the alarm system guarding the bat cave, but it should make it easier to get inside the villa. I assume that his server farm is powered by a separate power source. I mean, whatever he’s cooking up in his basement, it’s huge and hungry for electricity.”

Shaw taps on a different spot. “What’s that?”

“A pond? Hm, my Russian isn’t good enough to read this tiny print.”

“What’s a pond doing so far away from the villa?” Shaw frowns.

Pierce hums in agreement. “True, that’s fishy.”

Shaw glares at him.

“Right, that was a bad pun. Anyway: the pond. Maybe it’s… cooling something down underground?”

“So it’s irrelevant to us,” Shaw decides.

“Well, unless you want to scuba dive down there and try to find a way inside like that.”

Shaw ignores that comment and looks at the blueprints. She sees something that confuses her. Another room? “What’s that?”

“The garage. Sadly, I couldn’t get the blue print from his secret server farm, just from his villa.”

Great, so she’ll have to go in completely blind and unprepared. Shaw checks her watch. “Fine, give me the blueprints. What’s the easiest way inside the compound?”

“Through the gate. That’s the only way inside.”

Shaw feels her jaw work. “Yeah, no shit. But how do _we_ get—”

“No, I know what you meant, but the answer is still the same,” Pierce softly interrupts her. “See this? That’s a control booth or something like that. I just need to be close enough to hack the system controlling the gate and cameras around that area to clear your way. Plus, you won’t have to carry your stuff all the way by foot if you simply drive through the open gate.”

“Let me guess: you’re going to drive and I am going to take out the guards?”

“Let’s just hope they don’t have any dogs,” Pierce winks.

Shaw trudges back to the trunk, gets the M4 out and closes it. Then she throws the keys at Pierce who catches them midair. “Alright, let’s not waste any more time,” she tells him and walks to the passenger side.

For once Pierce says nothing.

 

*

 

“You could just leave me somewhere,” Claire rasps out. “I’ll be fine.”

Root glances her way to give her a doubtful look. Claire definitely won’t be fine on her own and without someone taking care of that gunshot wound.

They are standing in an alley, scouting the area. Or, at least, Root is watching their surroundings; Claire is just leaning against the wall, trying to stay conscious while breathing through the pain in her injured shoulder. Root is supporting most of her weight at this point.

The girl isn’t wrong. Root could ditch her in this alley and go on about her life as if their shared adventure never happened. “This dumpster looks comfy,” Claire adds when she notices Root’s look.

Root decides that while sarcasm can be an admirable thing in a person, it really starts to grate on her nerves. Getting rid of Claire is a tempting thought.

The thing is, though—nothing the Machine tells her to do is random or a coincidence. If the Machine wants her to work with Claire, then there is a reason beyond “testing Root’s patience”.

“You’re coming with me,” Root says quietly back, not spotting any suspicious cars or people roaming the streets. “Even though it would definitely get me to the apartment faster if you just climbed into that dumpster,” she adds.

“You’re taking me to your home?” Claire asks in disbelief. “I tried to get Harold killed.”

As if Root needs a reminder of that.

“And I shot you in the shoulder for it,” Root gives back. When she’s certain that they aren’t being followed, they start walking again. Some people give them curious looks, but no one approaches them or starts running at them. A good sign, these days.

“And now my other shoulder is hurt,” Claire whines, leaning her head against Root’s shoulder. “Just when that one healed.”

“Poor thing, it’s almost like you hung out with the wrong kind of people,” Root says with a condescending tone. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

“Do I have to climb stairs?”

“It’s on the third floor, so yes.”

“Ugh.”

“And I’m not carrying you.”

Claire’s shoulders slump in response.

Root doesn’t say anything after that because they have to cross the street, make a right turn and then get to the entrance of the apartment complex. Claire is breathing heavily by the time they make it to the apartment.

Root steers them towards the couch and makes Claire sit down there. “I’ll get the first aid kit,” she informs Claire, who makes a vague noise of agreement.

An hour later, Claire is sound asleep on the couch but her wound is neatly patched up. It wasn’t that bad, the bullet miraculously has not done any grave damage. She had to stitch it, but that’s a minor price for a wound like this. The blood loss is what knocked her out, though. She should be okay soon, Root thinks.

“LET HER REST.” The Machine has been quiet the whole way back to the apartment. This is the first thing She’s said since they made it out of the hospital.

“Are you helping her because she’s like me?” Root wonders and turns around to look at Claire. The old her, the one that hadn’t found the Machine yet. It’s not the first time she ponders about the similarities between Claire and herself. Ever since Harold mentioned her when she first got their attention—it’s ironic that this girl used a similar tactic to Root when trying to lure Harold into a trap. In the name of Samaritan, of course, but still.

Root’s mouth twitches despite herself.

“CLAIRE MAHONEY HAS POTENTIAL,” She replies after a moment of silence. 

Root stares at her unwanted guest and wonders what the Machine is actually trying to achieve here. What potential is the Machine talking about?

She sighs and decides to get a shower.

 

*

 

Shaw climbs back into the car. “Go,” she tells Pierce who stares at her with big eyes. She just took out the three guards (turns out that one lucky guard was allowed to sit in the booth while two had to freeze their asses off in the cold) after Pierce hacked the control system with his phone and opened that gate for them.

They are now driving slowly past that open gate, mainly because Pierce is looking around for any signs of trouble.

Shaw grips her M4 tighter and scans the visible area, but she can’t see much. The fog is getting thicker and it’s started to snow again.

“Where should I leave the car?”

“Preferably somewhere close to—” Shaw never finishes her sentence because shots echo through the darkness, smashing the glass of the Mercedes.

“Get down!” she hisses uselessly, already seeing the change in Pierce posture and pained breathing. She curses, because the car is still driving, slowly, but still going. She can’t spot the asshole shooting at them, but he’s still there.

Shaw opens the passenger seat door and rolls out of the slow moving car, her M4 loaded and ready to fire back. She lies on her stomach, pretty much out in the open but she spots that dumbass before he can fire again with his sniper rifle. Idiot wasted all six shots at once and he has to reload.

It takes her two tries to hit him. She isn’t sure but she could swear it was a clean headshot, despite the fog around them.

Before relief can force her muscles to relax, she hears the splashing of water and the sound of a drowning engine. Oh no. She gets to her feet and—Pierce drove the car right into the pond. The trunk will go underwater soon.

“Pierce, what the—” And then Shaw runs, rips the trunk open and gets her stuff out to keep it dry. “Shit. Pierce?” Her hands are already taking the M4 off and placing it on top of her backpack. She stares at the water, wonders why it isn’t frozen, and quickly stops caring when she marches into the ice cold water. “Fuck,” she curses into the darkness, moving to the driver seat.

The water is only slowly filling the car and she can still open the door with no problem. Pierce has trouble getting air. “Hi there,” he chokes out. “Sorry for the mess… I g-guess you won’t get y-your d-deposit back for that rented car,” he gets out and looks at her with glassy eyes.

This fucker and his jokes.

Shaw opens his coat and doesn’t have to look any further. His shirt is dark red. Adrenaline is probably what keeps that poor bastard awake. A hand grips her arm. “Listen t-to me. I t-took all cameras out. Around and in-inside the villa. All that is left is to c-cut the wires of the alarm s-system.”

“What about the utility tower?”

“For-forget it.” He swallows a few times and looks like he has seconds left. “You can just p-punch your way through.”

“Alright,” Shaw tells him with a soothing voice, not sure what else to say or do. He’s dying and there is nothing she can do. The car is sinking deeper. “Thanks.” She feels stupid talking to him like that.

He swallows again and yet blood drips out of his mouth. He looks like he wants to say something else, but his grip loosens around her arm and his breathing stops shortly after. His head lolls to side a little, empty eyes staring at the dashboard.

Shaw is thigh deep in that stupid pond and her body is starting to shake. Soon her teeth will start to clatter.

She gets out of the water, shoulders the bags and takes the M4 back into her one free hand. No one is shooting at her so maybe she’s lucky and that was it for now.

She glances one last time over her shoulder to the car that is now halfway under water. She can’t see Logan Pierce anymore.

“SORRY,” the Machine suddenly says.

“W-what comes n-next?” she asks with clattering teeth and ignores what the Machine just said.

“FIND THE ENTRANCE IN THE VILLA TO HIS PRIVATE SERVER FARM,” the Machine tells her and then remains silent again.

Shaw takes a deep breath and looks around. She spots stairs and climbs them up, and a giant villa comes into view. Her teeth clatter and every step hurts. It’s so damn cold and the wind isn’t helping her one bit. Her wet pants stick to her legs and make walking feel really awkward.

Her boots crunch on the iced snow and it is kind of gross to walk with wet shoes _and_ wet socks.

She slows down a little when she comes closer to the back entrance. It’s actually just a door with a lock leading to what looks like a back patio. It’s hard to tell with all the snow piling up here.

With shaking hands, hurting fingers and the burning desire to get out of her wet clothes, Shaw manages to pick the lock and quickly slips inside. She moans when she’s finally inside where it’s warm and _dry_. But first she breaks the plastic cover open of the alarm system, pries the cover panel away and looks over the thin wires. She cuts through one and hopes she didn’t fuck it up, but everything remains silent and the system display goes dark.

Shaw gets the wet, half-ruined blueprints out of her parka pocket and studies them for a moment before finding a door that should lead her to her actual destination.

The interior of this villa is tasteful and expensive. Shaw makes sure to carry mud and melting snow everywhere. Then she goes to a bathroom to get towels and takes her jacket, shoes, socks and pants off. When she’s done drying herself with a towel, she rummages in her backpack for her back up clothes. Once she’s dressed in her cargo pants she puts the wet clothes into a plastic bag and throws them away, except the shoes. She leaves those near the door that she has to somehow get through.

Sneaking works better with bare feet anyway. Even if her feet are still cold.

There is another alarm system next to the door but the display is dark, and Shaw wants to laugh when she realizes that this stupid asshole connected both alarm systems, probably out of laziness. She tries the door and there it is; it swings open just like that.

“That was easy,” Shaw mumbles. It feels like entering a trap. Nevertheless, she has no time to lose so she shoulders her luggage and makes her way downstairs, the M4 securely in her hands. It’s silent the whole way down and the temperature drops a little when she reaches another door. It’s a glass door that slides to the sides when Shaw comes closer to it.

She hesitates for a moment, scans the walls and ceiling of the hallway for cameras, but the one she does spot is facing the door leading to the server farm. The other door to her right isn’t guarded at all. It must be another control room, probably monitoring the whole party down here.

She has to get inside that room first, disable all cameras around here and then continue with her mission.

Shaw puts the bag with the explosives and the backpack with the laptops and drives down and shuffles closer to the door with a small glass window in it. She spots two men, dressed in black and each armed with a stick, a gun and a radio unit attached to their belts. They are completely unaware of what happened outside, which makes her wonder if that radio unit is even working.

Maybe the Machine intercepted?

Whatever.

Shaw slips the sling around her shoulder and gets ready to ruin the shift of these two assholes.

 

*

 

Root scrolls through the stolen files she copied onto the flash drive and tries to make sense of the file names, terms and codes that were used to label folders. Some folders are just dates. One folder in particular catches her attention.

Folder: _11/22/14._

Root opens it and glances over her laptop screen to the couch, where Claire is still deeply asleep. At least it’s like she’s not here at all. Neither Harold nor John know about today’s stunt, or that she brought a souvenir from her adventure back home. And she doesn’t feel like sharing that with them right now.

Root looks back at the screen and looks at the listed folders. There are sometimes actual names listed, but most of the time they just used code names.

_Compact Persian Sociopath_.

She opens the folder and swallows hard.

It contains evaluation files, observations of physical and mental condition and—

“Oh,” she whispers, reading through a report filed by Henry Morrison. According to this file, he’s a guard at the Fort Huachuca Clinic. Root frowns. The file mentions the breakout of prisoner 216, Shaw, Sameen.

Shaw got out.

Months ago.

“Where is she?” Root asks into the silence of her apartment, scrolling further down. The report is brief and focuses on property damage and possible routes Shaw could’ve taken.

“ALIVE,” is all the Machine replies.

“That’s… good, but not what I asked,” Root grumbles, putting the laptop to the side. “Why didn’t she come home?”

Nothing.

Root worries her lower lip and sighs. She should be happy, right? Shaw is alive. Shaw is out there, somewhere. But that’s what makes her heart pound and ache: she’s _worried_ that there is a reason why Shaw isn’t back in New York by now, that Samaritan is relentless in its hunt for Sameen.

Root gets up and walks to the window to stare out at the brightly lit city on that dark afternoon. “Alive,” she whispers and lets herself smile with closed eyes, forgetting for a moment what could keep Shaw from coming back to New York City. She leans her forehead against the cold window glass and exhales.

Sameen Shaw is alive.

 

*

 

Shaw can feel the hand around her throat tighten its grip. It takes a few seconds to grab the next best object on the table behind her—it’s a wireless keyboard—and she smashes it over his head.

Another hit to his temple and he collapses to the floor with a small groan.

Shaw takes a few deep breaths and tries to calm down her heartbeat. She didn’t expect this dude to take a hit with the butt of the M4 to his throat and still be able to land a hit on her. His friend was much friendlier, passing out after the bullet went through his knee.

After a few minutes of collecting herself and picking up the M4 she dropped, Shaw turns around and looks at the various screens showing different camera perspectives from the server room. This damn room is _huge_. Holy shit, this Balashov is really loaded.

She counts nine guards briefly flashing through on the surveillance feeds. That means these guys are patrolling the parts of the server room that are not watched over by the cameras. And she notices another thing: the control panel for all these servers doesn’t show up on any screen, which means—it’s also in a blind spot. 

Shaw steps over the motionless body of one of the guards she just knocked out, picks up the keyboard that is more or less still intact and places it back onto the desk. She shifts it a little and starts typing with two fingers, the M4 digging into her hip. She disables all cameras, using the chip card of the other guard she knocked out.

A box pops up on the screen, confirming that the cameras are now turned off. Shaw shuts the PC down by agreeing to do all upgrades, just because, and leaves the control room. Her feet are cold, but she pretends not to notice. She’s on a mission here and a bit on the clock. She doubts that Balashov will party all night; it is in the middle of the week after all. She just hopes the Machine will give her a heads up in time.

With a small groan she picks up the bags and starts walking towards the last door at the end of the hallway.

She holds the chip card against the scanner next to the door leading to the server room and waits for the green light. Then she pulls the heavy metal door open and steps inside.

The hum of numerous rows of servers greets her. It smells like plastic and filtered air down here. And it is noticeably warmer inside this room.

And she has to be extra silent, because she’s not alone in here.

Dammit.

Shaw holds her M4 to prevent it from moving on its own when she walks and she decides to leave her stuff right here. She has to get rid of the roaming men down here or else she’ll get in trouble.

She could sneak up on each one of them and knock them out, but a) it’s time consuming and b) the risk of being caught is pretty high. No, she has to clean this room in a different way. She doesn’t necessarily think about killing them, but no one said these guys need intact knees.

Shaw pushes the sling around so that the M4 is now resting on her back and then she starts rubbing her cold hands together. Tactical gloves would be really good right now. But this will do. She takes a few deep breaths and then starts climbing to the top of the server tower. Her body is completely tense, each movement a deliberate decision. That way she keeps any kind of noise to a minimum. Once she makes it to the top she has a look around.

Shaw squats down, makes sure the silencer of her M4 doesn’t hit the server underneath her bare feet, and then she watches the men roam on their routes through the server farm. They all stay close to the middle of the giant room, where Shaw spots a desk with several screens, keyboards and hard drives on it. Visually it reminds her a lot of Finch’s work space.

That has to be the control panel for this… thing.

She cranes her neck a little to make sure she’s got the walking patterns of the idiots down there memorized. It looks like a random pattern, but it’s not.

She needs a distraction.

“A little help, maybe?” Shaw breathes in a hushed tone.

“I CAN’T DO MUCH WITHOUT ALERTING BALASHOV VIA HIS CREATION,” the Machine pipes up in her ear. “HOWEVER, THERE IS A KNOWN MALFUNCTION OF THE SPEAKERS.”

“Meaning?”

“BALASHOV LIKES TO LISTEN TO TCHAIKOVSKY’S FAMOUS ‘SWAN LAKE’ WHEN HE WORKS ON HIS ASI DOWN HERE.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I CHECKED, THE iPOD IS STILL CONNECTED.”

Shaw turns her head a little to relax her tense muscles in her neck and shoulders and takes one deep breath. “Go on, have fun.”

“DON’T HIT THE SERVERS, IT WILL ALERT ITS MASTER. JUST KNEES,” the Machine reminds her.

“Please,” Shaw scoffs back, getting really tired of being doubted. This sounds a lot like an implied “in case you miss” which won’t happen. Not on her part, at least.

The goons down there are a different story.

The first notes of Swan Lake start to blare through the speakers and Shaw can practically feel the confusion, followed by frustration and anger. Someone is shouting curses, someone else laughs. The guards all abandon their usual routes and Shaw’s mouth twitches.

Not all of them gather around the table where the innocent iPod is located, but even those who don’t step closer have still abandoned their routes and just watch their colleagues deal with the problem.

Honestly, if you want something well-guarded you should always employ German ex-GSG 9 dudes. They wouldn’t all flock around a table with a malfunctioning iPod like these idiots are doing right now.

Shaw walks swiftly on her bare feet over the server towers, lifting her M4 and getting ready to take them out.

The dude that spots her stepping out of the shadows and into the light goes down first. His friend and the next guy closest to him share his fate.

Shaw ducks when the first guard manages to get his gun out of his belt holster and shoots him in the shoulder. Close enough. Sadly, she has no time to find shelter for the next round, so she does the next best thing: she jumps down on the dude that just got the gun out of his holster. With a yelp he goes down, hitting his head at the desk behind him. Shaw gets off him, swirls around and slams the butt of her M4 into his stomach, twisting his hand with the gun to shoot his friend behind him twice in the leg. Both go down.

Three left.

She throws herself behind the next best server tower and realizes her mistake too late when the bullets get stuck in that server unit. Shit.

“BALASHOV HAS BEEN ALERTED. HE’LL BE ON HIS WAY. YOU HAVE THIRTY MINUTES.”

“And how much do I need?” Shaw yells over the sound of Swan Lake and the bullets being fired at her.

“ESTIMATED TIME FOR DOWNLOADING THE CODE: AT LEAST THREE HOURS.”

“ _Three hours?_ ” Shaw yells in disbelief, holding the M4 around the corner and spraying some bullets back. A man yells something that sounds vaguely like сука. She hopes she hit something very painful. “You could’ve told me I would have to spend the night here. Would’ve packed my sleeping bag and all,” Shaw says dryly, rolling her eyes.

“YOU DID NOT ASK.”

“Duh,” Shaw groans and darts to the next server tower. Her enemy has the advantage of having two pairs of eyes looking for her. But that’s alright, they lack the brains. They try to circuit her, which would work if she had stayed in her current position. But she simply repeats the trick from the beginning and climbs the server tower, trying to keep each movement light and soundless.

Swan Lake is swelling to its finale and soon the room will be completely silent again. Shaw manages to get up and lies down on her stomach, the M4 firmly in her hands. She crawls forward and waits for the song to end. Once the music stops, she holds her breath and listens.

She can hear one pair of heavy boots sneaking past the row of server towers she’s currently camping on. She rocks to the side and spots Dumbass One closing in on her previous position. She uses the scope, holds her breath again and fires into both his knees from behind.

He goes down with a loud cry, alerting the last standing man, Dumbass Two. He hurries to his hurt colleague and cashes in his own pair of bullets through his knees.

Shaw jumps down and kicks their guns away, not wasting another glance at them. “It’s nothing personal,” she mutters when she walks towards the desk with the various screens on it. The men lying here are either unconscious or too weak to move or make any sound. She takes the weapons out of their reach, anyway. Just to be sure.

Shaw pushes the office chair out of her way and then taps ‘enter’ on the keyboard that looks more used.

The screens—five total—come to life, the middle one in the lower row asks for a password to be entered.

Shaw stares at the blinking cursor and realizes with a pang that this is something Pierce would’ve been great at. She, on the other hand, is not great at the whole hacker business.

“Any idea how to get this started?”

“TB-37 IN SHUT DOWN MODE. YOU HAVE TO HURRY UP.”

“Great, time pressure is gonna help me _a lot_.”

“ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL TOTAL SHUT DOWN: 4 MINUTES, 52 SECONDS.”

“Still not helping.”

“TRY HIS SURNAME.”

Shaw furrows her brows. “He can’t be that full of shit,” she says with doubt in her voice.

“TRY IT.”

Well, she doesn’t have a better idea right now, so she just goes for it. She types the name in, using both index fingers and then hits enter. The screen changes yet again and she’s inside the system that is currently shutting down. Everything is written in Russian which is a little harder to read for Shaw. It’s more time consuming.

“How do I stop the shut down?” she asks through gritted teeth.

There is silence. Then: “OPEN SYSTEM LOG,” and then the Machine continues to talk her ear off about what codes to type in and how to stop the complete shutdown.

She’s done after 3:49 minutes.

“This better be the last time I have to play Finch,” Shaw grumbles. Then she gets her things from the spot where she left them and gets the equipment out that she needs for this task. She starts to connect the cables and hard drives to the laptops, and she hooks those to the correct desktop under the desk with the Machine’s help. Next she turns the laptops on and waits for further instructions.

It takes her another 20 minutes to make TB-37 think that the connected laptops and hard drives are not evil external things hooked up to its core system to harm it, enough time for Balashov to return to his property.

“YOU ARE NOT ALONE ANYMORE.”

Shaw just hums, and finishes typing the last command that the Machine told her to. Then she presses enter, right in time when she hears steps outside the glass door.

“HE’S ALONE,” the Machine helps, and Shaw wonders how the Machine can know that if the cameras are turned off. “HIS MEN ARE INVESTIGATING THE REST OF THE COMPOUND. THEY WILL JOIN YOU LATER.”

She can hear the doors slide open and heavy steps coming closer. Shaw takes her gun out and makes sure the safety is off.

“DON’T DIE. THE TRANSFER PROCESS HASN’T STARTED YET,” the Machine tells her.

“I’m just a means to an end, got it,” Shaw murmurs with a dry tone and presses her back against the server tower that gives her the best cover. Plus, she can still keep an eye on her equipment on the table.

She can see the open window asking for confirmation that the transfer should start. All that is missing is her finger pressing down the right button. Great.

Balashov calls something in Russian. He sounds a little tipsy, his voice hoarse from smoking a lot in a short time. Then she hears the crackling of a radio unit and Balashov giving orders first, then asking where the hell everybody is.

Shaw is almost disappointed.

It’s going to be a short fight.

 

*

 

Balashov is unconscious for almost an hour. When he wakes up, he blinks a little dazedly into the light Shaw’s holding in front of his face, and then he jerks back, remembering what has happened.

“You!” he spits, also remembering that she’s American. “You think you can waltz in here and ruin my work? My _life_?” His Russian accent barely shines through when he speaks English.

“Yeah,” Shaw shrugs, putting the flashlight away, and then she leans with her lower back against the edge of the desk, looking at her bare feet. They are cold. And her right eye really hurts from that one hook she cashed in. It’ll bruise and probably turn into a black eye.

She wants to break the hand responsible for that. She doesn’t.

“When I get my fingers on you—”

“ _If_ ,” Shaw interrupts him, not a bit worried that he can get out of his chair prison. She zip tied his wrists and ankles to the rolling office chair and used and excessive amount of duct tape around his arms and legs to make sure that he can barely move _anything_. She should’ve taped his mouth too, she thinks with regret. “I don’t think you’ll manage to free yourself, though.”

Balashov smiles a dangerous smile, showing his teeth. “You Americans are all the same,” he says with disdain in his voice. “You think you can come and take what you want. My men will find you and end your work for your corrupt government, bitch.”

Shaw thinks about letting him die with these false observations but a look at the completion bar of the transfer on the screen informs her that only 37% of the code has been successfully copied so far.

She has a lot of time to kill. “I’m not working for the US government,” Shaw tells him, crossing her arms.

There is a slight change in Balashov’s demeanor. He didn’t expect that. “What?”

“In fact, I am pretty sure the United States have no idea what a big thing you’ve been working on,” she continues. She wonders how Samaritan could miss a whopper like this. Or maybe Balashov somehow managed to hide that thing from Samaritan.

That begs the question: how the fuck did the Machine find it?

“I don’t believe you,” Balashov tells her. He sounds like a petulant child. “You could tell me anything just to get me to talk.”

“Talk? About what?” Shaw wonders and snorts. “I don’t care what you have to say. It’s not relevant to me.”

Balashov narrows his eyes, clearly piqued by his implied irrelevance. Then he cranes his neck to see the screens behind her. “You are stealing it,” he realizes breathlessly. “I worked for _years_ on that project! I devoted my entire life to this! You can’t just… _steal it_.”

“Watch me,” Shaw says and looks at the miserable man in front of her, tied to a chair that he probably spent hours sitting on and feeling like the king of the world. “If it makes you feel better, the intended purpose of your project won’t get lost.”

“It does not,” Balashov hisses. “It’s not finished anyway and you don’t look like someone who could complete my legacy.”

“Hey, watch it,” Shaw warns him, picking her gun up from the table. “I took out all your men on my own, including you. Pretty dumb to walk around without any guards, hm?”

“They are probably still trying to repair the damage you’ve done to my security system. But don’t worry, they’ll come for you.” It doesn’t sound too convinced.

Shaw smiles. “I’m sure they will.” She turns around and checks the bar once more. 38%.

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH HIM?” the Machine asks suddenly and that gives Shaw a pause.

“What?”

“BALASHOV. WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO WITH HIM?”

Shaw isn’t used to being the one answering questions, and it takes her a while to realize the Machine’s dilemma. “Technically he’s neither victim nor perpetrator. There is no reason to protect him or take him out. And yet you gave me his number,” Shaw mumbles, provoking Balashov to mock her in Russian.

“HE’S A THIRD CATEGORY.”

“Third category?”

“Crazy bitch, talking to herself,” Balashov scoffs behind her.

She’s really tempted to shoot him right away, but she doesn’t.

“PRESENTING A GROWING DANGER IN THE FUTURE,” the Machine clarifies. “LIKE CONGRESSMAN ROGER MCCOURT.”

Oh, right. That piece of shit that made Samaritan go online possible in the first place—because they didn’t take him out when they had the chance. Shaw closes her eyes and turns around to face Balashov again. “How bad is it?” she asks.

“HIS POTENTIAL TO BUILD AN ASI WON’T JUST VANISH. HE COULD TRY IT AGAIN. NEXT ATTEMPT’S COMPLETION POSSIBLE IN SHORTER AMOUNT OF TIME. GROWING PARANOIA WOULD RESULT IN EVEN HARSHER PROTECTION MEASUREMENTS.”

Shaw already knows that she can’t let Balashov live. But it’s nice to see that the Machine has a certain idea _how_ a different decision would affect them. She feels like this whole Machine talking to her feature has some really great perks. She’s going to tell Finch all about it once she’s back home in New York.

“Who the fuck are you talking to?” Balashov asks, voice loud and angry.

Shaw still has a lot of time to kill. “Why are you building this?” she asks him, not answering his question right away.

“What do you care, huh?”

“Indulge me. I guess the Russian government paid you handsomely to even get this whole project started. I also think that you had a reason to even go to your friends in the government.” She checks her watch. It’s now almost 9 pm. “So? Why go to your buddies in 2006 and say ‘hey, let’s build an ASI!’.”

Balashov lowers his head a little and sighs. “Because you Americans built one, that’s why,” he replies, meeting her gaze with defiance in his dark eyes. “Maybe you think it’s your birth right to police other countries, steal their surveillance feeds and watch everyone everywhere, but not here. Not if I can help it!”

Shaw knows Russian pride when she sees it. She nods in agreement. “I know,” she tells him, looking around the room as if looking for the right words. “You’re right.”

“You… agree with me?”

“Yeah. I mean, to a point. I don’t think you mind it one bit that people are watched and their behavior analyzed or else this wouldn’t exist. You just mind it if a third party is doing it and not your own country.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about. The world might pretend to have forgotten the Cold War, but the scars are still there. And building an ASI hungry for the world? Not a very diplomatic move, Miss USA,” he throws at her and huffs.

Shaw glares at him. “I’m not here because a suit writing my checks told me to be,” she says. Currently no one is writing her checks—unless the Machine is going to pay her for this. She doesn’t really care.

“But you are going to sell my code to them, right? So that this Samaritan monster can grow and swallow the whole world,” he guesses, not looking at her anymore. “Oh yes, I know its name and how it sneaked its way into the everyday life of Americans without them knowing it. How it wants to control the world.”

“No,” she says quietly.

“What? I’ve seen the proof with my own eyes, on November 22nd last year at the stock market—”

“This is not meant for Samaritan,” Shaw interrupts him and shakes off the mention of that day at the stock market. She knows damn well what happened on that day.

That gets his attention again. His eyes are wide and he stares at her with an open mouth. “No,” he whispers with plain disbelief on his face. “You can’t be serious.”

“I wasn’t talking to myself, earlier,” she adds.

“Oh, come on. No. No! Who needs two ASIs in their country? What the fuck is wrong with you people over there?”

“Listen, I am not a big fan of that second robot god either, but the good news is, with your little monster here, I hopefully will live to see the day when Samaritan is gone.”

Balashov suddenly gets pale. “You are going to kill me,” he concludes. “That’s why you are telling me all this.”

Shaw doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

He says nothing after that and Shaw turns around so she doesn’t have to look at his miserable face anymore.

 

*

 

Around 11 pm it is finally done.

Balashov hasn’t said a word again, all the fight and anger has left him. When Shaw puts the last hard drive carefully away into her backpack, she takes her gun into her hand and walks on her bare feet to the office chair he’s tied to.

“Please, I have two children, a girlfriend that is probably cheating on me right now, but I love her and… just, don’t do this.”

“You would build another one, and I can’t let that happen.”

“You’re protecting that other system, I see,” Balashov says, defeat coloring his voice again. “This is a mistake.”

“I know what a mistake is. I once let a man like you live and nothing good came out of it,” Shaw tells him, crouching down to be closer to his eye level. “And I swore to myself: never again. If I can stop it, then I’d rather get my hands dirty than watch one more time how everything goes to shit.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Balashov informs her.

“Well, then there’s nothing left to talk about,” Shaw sighs and stands up again.

“No, wait! Wait. Maybe we can work something out.”

“Like what? You become my prisoner until one of us dies? No, thanks.”

“But—”

Shaw shakes her head a little. “I’m doing you a favor. I’ll blow this whole place up anyway, so…”

“Go to hell.”

Shaw wonders if he would believe her if she told him that she’s been there. That she’s watched herself being sliced open by Martine’s pale hands more often than she can count while being asked shit about Root and the rest of the team.

She puts two bullets into his head instead, the shots ringing in her ears.

She’s almost done here.

 

*

 

The backpack with the valuable content is already up in the living room of Balashov’s home. She’s now putting on her shoes and her parka, both still damp from her stunt in the pond.

Now comes the last part of the Machine’s plan.

Shaw walks through the large server room and installs one unit of the explosives Yogorov sold her into every other row, more or less in the middle. She connects them with the blasting wire, making sure she doesn’t waste any. Then she puts on the mask and the gloves, takes the drill out of the bag and shoves some explosives into each pillar, four in total. Once she’s connected them with the wire as well, she has a look around to see if this is going to work the way it should.

She spots a narrow door with a warning sign on it. It’s the maintenance room, and when she opens it, she spots two huge gas boilers and two gas meters. Oh boy.

Shaw could go back to the toolbox in that bag where the explosives had been, but she spots a fire axe in the corner of the maintenance room. She kicks the glass out of the box, pries the axe out and then goes to the corner, where the gas pipes are out in the open.

One precise hit and the pipe is cut through.

The sharp smell of gas fills her nostrils, and Shaw drops the axe and walks out of the small room to get her M4.Then she stops and looks at the drill, along with all the other stuff.

Honestly, she really doesn’t feel like carrying this shit.

The only thing she gets is a screw driver.

Her eye is still burning when she walks away from the toolbox, but at least it didn’t swell (so far). Maybe she’s lucky and it will go straight to bruising. Most of the impact went to her cheekbone anyway, it’s dumb luck it isn’t broken.

With swift steps, she leaves the server room and jams the sliding glass doors with the screw driver. The wire is going up the stairs where it’s hooked to the small detonator.

One last look around.

Balashov’s corpse is still resting on the office chair, in front of the now useless control panel of his ruined creation.

Shaw takes the stairs up, puts the backpack on over her M4 on her back and stops in front of the detonator. She closes the metal door and waits another minute for the gas to spread in the server room. Not too much, just enough to be sure that it will be one huge explosion.

Ideally, one where she doesn’t die, as well.

“Here goes nothing,” she mumbles to herself, crouches down and turns the detonator on. She sets the timer to 30 seconds, that’s all this detonator offers and well. She can work with that. She just has to be fast.

When she’s done, she runs for the same door she used as her entrance and takes three steps at a time, which is actually more like jumping down the stairs than walking them. Then she sprints towards the gate.

The force of the explosion still pushes her down into the snow.

 

*

 

Shaw coughs and crawls forward, testing if her limbs still work. Her knee hurts a lot, and she’s pretty sure it’s bleeding. She can’t tell for sure though, due to lying on wet, icy snow. Her vision is blurry and her ears ring. The smell of smoke fills her nose and makes her cough again.

She hears crunching steps in the snow next to her. She turns her head and casts a defiant look upwards. Even if she wanted to, there is no way she could reach her gun or M4 right now.

She doesn’t have to.

Yogorov looks down at her with a lazy little smile. “Need some help?”

Shaw passes out instead of answering.

 

*

  

Root wakes up to an alarm sound in her ear played by the Machine. She moves on the bed and bumps her knee against the laptop. She’s been reading through some more of the stolen files while keeping an eye on Claire, but she must’ve fallen asleep at some point.

The Machine starts to dictate her a number.

 

Root quickly reaches for the small notepad and pen on the nightstand that she keeps there for situations like this and starts writing. It’s an SSN, and the Machine tells her it’s a relevant one.

Claire stirs on the couch and yelps in pain. She probably moved her injured shoulder.

Root rolls her eyes and gets up. The clock on the wall in the kitchen tells her it’s barely 7 am.

“Get up, we have places to be,” she tells Claire and disappears into the bathroom.

Later, after a quick shower, she’ll find out that the SSN belongs to Senator Ross H. Garrison.   


End file.
